The magical function of living things is due to its complex and orderly structure, and there is no other reason. The only mystery is how such a complex structure came into being and how it survived billions of years.

Complex things are fragile, a mosquito, put in the hand a pinch will die. What do you mean dead? Death is the destruction of a complex and orderly structure. First, it becomes a disordered structure, then it rots and deteriorates, and finally it turns into simple substances like water and carbon dioxide. A mountain fire, a radius of tens of kilometers of living things are burned to death. So why after billions of years of wind and rain baptism, countless catastrophes and disasters, living things can survive and not become extinct?

The reason is simple, because of self-replication or self-reproduction. Self-replication is a positive feedback, why is it a positive feedback? Because the larger the base, the more products are copied, and the more products are copied, the larger the base of the next round of replication, this is a positive feedback. Positive feedback inevitably leads to sudden mutation, which means that the number of living things increases exponentially. It's like swarms of locusts, cockroaches and rats. Because there are so many of them, they can survive and not go extinct.

While variation and natural selection are essential, they are not scarce resources. There is variation and natural selection in non-living things, just as there is in living things.

Because non-living things cannot replicate themselves, non-living things under natural conditions are simple and have no complex structures. Because complex structures, once created, quickly become extinct, the evolutionary process always starts from beginning. This is the essential difference between living things and non-living things.

Like the race between tortoise and the hare, the tortoise runs slowly, but keeps running. Organisms evolve slowly at first, but after billions of years of continuous evolution, they are completely different from non-living things.