Individual organisms, working in concert, for a while, organize themselves in such a manner as to be able to keep the inside it, the outside out, to ingest what ever they need to survive from outside and to excrete the byproducts of their living. Also known as the by-products of their metabolism.

In order to perform the above, the individual organisms use information gathered by their ancestors and transmitted over generations. Which information has been shaped in time, through an evolutionary process, in order to remain useful for the currently surviving organisms.
Which said shaping has happened through the natural culling of the individuals bearing information no longer fitting to the then existing natural circumstances.

For life to continue, individuals living at anyone time must engage in reproduction.