life cycles arent bound by biological life, but life is a word and words have different layers of meaning
the universe has different layers and life is one of them but in a infinity of possibility its just one of them
i dont see the universe as being limited to what we are limited to due to our specific bio-chemical make up that we identified as a "living" organism
the universe can observe itself by recording data into itself which it does inevitably by being "alive", by moving around on a time frame
thats why we know about the big band, thats how we can understand about evolution, if you see a apple fall you can determine that it comes from a tree, its a cause and effect word where one thing lead to another, so what is happening now is building from what was happening then, so it always entertain the past, the way things are is related to the way things where, and if you are the whole universe including time then you are recording yourself by being yourself
if you look at the similarity between these :
could you tell me which one comes from your brain and which one comes from the sky ?
what if when we are looking into the sky at night we are looking inside the brain of "the" universe (there may be a infinity of them)
what if we are like bacteria inside your gut, so small and so unevolved compare to this giant universe head, but then what if we have little people inside our head too
and this huge universal brain is again the size of a bacteria inside a even huger brain
what if that never stops ? "as above so bellow"
or you can say that this universe brain is thinking yourself ( as much as you are thinking it)
but do you need your bones to be conscious or alive to be able to feel them, do you need a rock to be alive to be able to feel it ?
why would the universe need a minuscule human on planet earth to "observe" itself
but then why not, the universe might be thinking right now why is it self-conscious and whats the meaning of it all, but i would be doing so using equation a infinity more complex than we can do and we are all participating as little pieces of that equation by thinking and farting and moving around as part of the process
the way we feel and what we do might in some infinity small way influence the universe and what the universe is doing and thinking and feeling, and that is in return influencing us in some infinity small way because we are infinity small in the bigger scheme of things, or infinity big on a smaller scale