Scientists studying genetics of bacteria in marine plankton stumbled on a novel species of primitive organism they named Sukunaarchaeum mirabile, after a deity in Japanese mythology, renowned for its small size. Classified as belonging to the domain of Archaea, it lacks all recognizable metabolic pathways, primarily encoding machinery for its replication by a host organism, having less than half the DNA of the smallest archaeal. While some scientists believe viruses are not truly living, you have told us that is a false conclusion. Can this new, most primitive, virus-like entity be considered a life form?

These organisms, like all viruses, have consciousness, albeit of a quite primitive sort, so they are truly life forms and not simply an aggregate of chemicals that might change over time. So the rusting of iron is not something the metal chooses to do but a physical process that takes place because of chemistry and physics of the environment. Primitive organisms are possessed of a more powerful consciousness than their physical constituents in terms of atoms and molecules and their subcomponents. There is a hierarchy of sophistication that is quite complex, but that is a function of subjective classification and interpretation given that everything originates from divine consciousness to begin with.