Why is life programmed to survive?

[Arkilogue]

Locally...what about globally? As in all the external ramifications of the entire process at all affected locations, not just the shiny trinket at the end.

I didn't think you needed the qualifier "locally", but I was apparently wrong. Of course life can only increase order where it actually is.

Did you really need to be told that, or are you being deliberately obtuse?

Not at all. You only mentioned the refined metal at the end when referring to the increase of order by a mining operation, that's what I meant by "locally" as in "this here piece of shiny metal right here". Non-locally is the entire previous process of digging up the earth, smelting it down, stripping with chemicals and farting out as much exhaust as need to operate all this machinery...for this little piece of metal.

Say you could mine the entire surface of the earth as deep as you want for all the metal you could gather. Would you have increased the order of planet earth or decreased it? Or is the question invalid? Certainly all that metal would fetch a fine price at the Cantina Intergalactica and set your life up with as much order as you could afford...but what perspective are we looking from?