And the fact of self replication is not basic to life since an energetic photon or neutrino or proton when coming to rest can start a brand new form of life, not having originated from another replicating lifeform itself. I would think so, for this is probably aging itself, the wrinkles, the defects that build up. Atomic changes, oxidants, antioxidants, ions, elemental decay, radioactive element substitutions, etc. Virus Protein Part theory. This idea means that viruses are not foreign invaders although they can be, but that viruses for the most part are native, indigenous to the genome itself.
Viruses are the concept of mutation.
Viruses allows scientists to quantify how dynamic is a genome compared to another. If the human genome has 100,000 different viruses as compared to the orangutan genome with 5,000 viruses means that the human genome is that much more dynamic, flexible, adaptable, and changing. All for the good. You don't understand Max Planck experiments of blackbody radiation. Here is the gist.