[Kryptid]

There is a requirement to provide an answer.

No, there isn't. It is perfectly acceptable to say "I don't know" and there is never any guarantee that we ever will know.

[alancalverd]

It doesn't explain why life exists,

You can't presume a "why". "Why" is a consequence of something bigger (an intention) or more fundamental (a mechanism) than the phenomenon you are looking at, and in the case of life, we have no evidence of intention and no reason to think that it requires more than the known mechanisms of chemistry. 

or why its origin cannot be explained scientifically.

  Citation or proof. please.

[cleanair]

No, there isn't. It is perfectly acceptable to say "I don't know" and there is never any guarantee that we ever will know.

Can you explain why it is acceptable to consider that an answer to the simple question "what is life?" may not be possible? What could validate such an idea?

[cleanair]

You can't presume a "why". "Why" is a consequence of something bigger (an intention) or more fundamental (a mechanism) than the phenomenon you are looking at, and in the case of life, we have no evidence of intention and no reason to think that it requires more than the known mechanisms of chemistry. 

Why life exists is essentially asking "what is the origin of life?". It has nothing to do with intention per se.

To answer the question "what is life?" it may be relevant to know/question how it came into existence / what could explain it (why it exists).

[jeffreyH]

Why? That is philosophical. How? That is scientific. How does life come about? That is about the mechanics. Why does life come about? That is just the burden of having an advanced intelligence and an overactive imagination.

The how of something is not always positive though. How can we make people's lives better? That is positive. How can we rig the political and economic systems to concentrate all its resources with 1% of the population? That is not so positive.

Maybe we should stop asking stupid questions, wake up and smell the BS.

[alancalverd]

Can you explain why it is acceptable to consider that an answer to the simple question "what is life?" may not be possible?

Because we still live in a free society where you can consider anything you fancy, however ridiculous or pointless it may appear to anyone else. Words have the meaning we assign to them, and useful words have meaning by consensus. So the question "what is life" is about establishing the consensus value of the word, in the given context - in this case a scientific discussion in a biology forum.

[alancalverd]

Why life exists is essentially asking "what is the origin of life?". It has nothing to do with intention per se.

To answer the question "what is life?" it may be relevant to know/question how it came into existence / what could explain it (why it exists).

The answer to "why" is "because....." or "in order to...."

The answer to "what" is "that which...…"

The answer to "how" is "since A causes B...."

Colloquially, we sometimes use "why" to mean "how", but you have to be more pedantic in a science forum, lest the argument be hijacked by philosophy. 

[hamdani yusuf]

Answer to a how question can also be a step by step procedure or action, like in how something is made.

[pensador]

Surely all known life forms must have biochemical reactions to form a living organism. Once there are no biochemical reactions the life form is dead

[Kryptid]

Can you explain why it is acceptable to consider that an answer to the simple question "what is life?" may not be possible? What could validate such an idea?

The question I was talking about was the one regarding the origin of life, not what the definition of life is.

[evan_au]

Can you explain why it is acceptable to consider that an answer to the simple question "what is life?" may not be possible?

We have trouble identifying the borderline of life-as-we-know-it: carbon-based proteins in a water solution
- Miniature bacteria and giant viruses seem to blur the borders

However, it is quite possible that life may exist in the universe (or in the solar system) which do not conform to this familiar carbon+water paradigm.
- For example, on Titan, water is frozen rock solid, while organic solvents exist as liquids, so an entirely different form of life may (hypothetically) exist there
- Detecting this life would require careful observation and consideration of general criteria to identify life
- I expect that the confirmation of life elsewhere in the universe will require shifting the borderline multiple times
- On Titan, even human proximity as observers at a temperature of 300K would vaporize any life that is present there

It doesn't explain why life exists, or why its origin cannot be explained scientifically.

The answer to "why" is "because....." or "in order to...."

In a religious context "God made it" is an answer to "Why does life/the universe exist?"; a Prime Cause
- To which a scientist would reply with a science question: "How was life/the universe formed?", the "who" question being excluded by Occam's Razor and the French Revolution (among others)

For scientists, a possible Prime Cause for life is "Entropy"
- Living things accelerate the universal increase in entropy in order to produce a temporary, local reduction in entropy, which we call "life"
- The universal increase in entropy being an observed, statistical trend in our universe

[alancalverd]

I beg to pick nits! No need for Occam's Razor or Madame Guillotine, just basic Anglo-Saxon:

"Joe Bloggs made it" is the answer to "who?" but "Joe Bloggs* made it in order to beat his wife with it" is the answer to "why?"

And there's the problem. God may well have done it, but why? Even the facetious answer "for his own amusement" is untenable because an omnipotent, omniscient  being can't be surprised and therefore can't be amused.

*This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is coincidental. Other wife beaters are available

[alancalverd]

As an example, for a long time animal minds have been ignored by science. Animal minds have been considered a "black box" and wasn't given attention and thus people in general didn't know anything about it and cannot understand a problem with treating animals in a specific way (i.e. without respect).

Science is a process, not an organism, and thus can't be accused of "ignoring" anything. Some humans treat animals (including other humans) with a notable lack of respect. Nothing to do with science, largely caused by religion, politics, philosophy, and other perversions.