I'll answer you last point first. You are correct of course, that babies and warts are both living things. The real difference, as you pointed out, is potential. The wart will always be just a wart, but the unborn baby just might be the future president of the U.S., or a doctor...who knows? When you k**l the baby, you k**l everything it may have accomplished in life.

As for a description of life, maybe I'm not using the correct words. You said the living body has the "ability" to function, while the dead body does not. I believe that ability comes only with life...where there is no life, there is no ability. Our ability to function does not include dreaming and imagining. If we lived as animals, only concerned with eating, safety, and procreation, we would have survived just as well as we have, maybe even better. What I was asking for is to give a scientific explanation of the ability you spoke of, or life. You see, I don't believe science CAN answer that question...what is life. Science can tell you when something is alive or not, but I don't believe science can tell you why one thing is live and another thing, identical in every way, is dead. A body can be kept functional artificially, but that doesn't mean that there's "anybody home". On the other hand, the body can be clinically dead and the "life" can still be returned to the body.
I hope I explained it better this time around.
Have a great day, JW

If, big IF, it is ever possible for science, philosophy, politics and religion to actually determine and agree on what point we become "beings", what then? What would be the benefits? What would we gain? Would we then have justification to destroy life before it becomes a "being"? Would we then have license to do wh**ever we please with anything bearing the potential to become a "being"? Would we then be able to put a dollar amount on human life? Would this open the door to further determinations on what constitutes a being? Where, in God's name, would this end?

I posed some questions about future possibilities.

You are making some outlandish assumptions. How do you know a growth inside a woman is insentient? Can you prove that? How do you know that the existence of a soul is unprovable? Just because science has not yet provided empirical evidence one way or the other, who's to say one day it won't?

Besides, science is not the only path to knowledge. The statement that science is the only way to t***h contradicts itself because that statement has no basis in science.

Great, glad yo hear it, I love exchanging thoughts Let's maybe define potential... what is not presently but will be, if able to come to completion.

Defined as: having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.

synonyms: possible, likely, prospective, future, probable, budding, in the making; More
latent, embryonic, developing, dormant, inherent, unrealized, undeveloped
"a potential source of conflict"

noun
noun: potential; plural noun: potentials

1.
latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.
"a young broadcaster with great potential"
synonyms: possibilities, potentiality, prospects; More
promise, capability, capacity, ability, power;
aptitude, talent, flair;
informalwhat it takes
"the economic potential of the area"
the possibility of something happening or of someone doing something in the future.
"pesticides with the potential to cause cancer"
2.
Physics
the quantity determining the energy of mass in a gravitational field or of charge in an electric field.

We can go back to my example of a ball of clay, it has all of the elements of a vase, but it is not...yet, does that mean it IS a vase while it sits as a ball of clay, or...will it someday be. Now, as you say, when is that? Where is that line of demarcation?

There is also an ideology that physical life is everything, I don't hold that to be true.

As there is a spiritual afterlife, I believe there is also spiritual prior life in the beyond. What is above, there is below. Souls who choose this journey to the physical world, a learning experience to acquire a higher plateau of soul consciousness. As Jesus had a contract, we all come with contracts to fulfill, our free choices is a part of that and our outcome. Just my thoughts to share. I hope not to get too banged up for sharing this...

If, big IF, it is ever possible for science, philosophy, politics and religion to actually determine and agree on what point we become "beings", what then? What would be the benefits? What would we gain? Would we then have justification to destroy life before it becomes a "being"? Would we then have license to do wh**ever we please with anything bearing the potential to become a "being"? Would we then be able to put a dollar amount on human life? Would this open the door to further determinations on what constitutes a being? Where, in God's name, would this end?