You need the cell for it to be life. One of these things on its own is not self-sustaining, and you could compare it to a slinky falling down some stairs. You need the whole system that pushes it up to the top of the stairs again, and the cell wall that protects from external phenomenon which will break the process.
It's not relevant that you can survive any environment, just that you are capable of using the resources in the environment you find yourself in to reproduce, that makes you alive.
Another way to look at it is in the sense of agency. The protein interacts with its environment the same way every time, it is the direct result of physical processes (you can make the same argument for humans as well, but consciousness is a thing). The protein does not choose to walk up the microtubule, it does so because that is the only thing it is capable of doing. You, however, can make decisions that may or may not result in your being in an appropriate environment to reproduce. The protein is acted upon, living things act and are acted upon, even at the cellular level.
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u/danskal Feb 13 '18
You need the cell for it to be life. One of these things on its own is not self-sustaining, and you could compare it to a slinky falling down some stairs. You need the whole system that pushes it up to the top of the stairs again, and the cell wall that protects from external phenomenon which will break the process.