What are the key indicators of life?
Movement
Respiration
Sensitivity
Cells
Growth
Excretion
Reproduction
Nutrition
for it to be living it must conform to most, if not all of these rules.
Some organisms are difficult to classify, such as Virus which is often just an RNA strand in a protein shell that infects living cells and uses the cells ribosomes to build new RNA strands from amino acids. Effectively paracitising the cell.
For what makes up conscious thought, try Decartes and go from there! I think, there for I am. More appropriate for you lot, I
drink there for I am.