Layer 2. Vijay's Law: Everything in the Universe Is Alive and Conscious: Life and Consciousness as Fundamental Properties of Matter

This paper presents Layer 2 of the author’s six-layer Vijay’s Law framework and argues that life and consciousness are fundamental latent properties of all matter rather than late emergent properties of biological complexity. Building on the cosmological foundation established in Layer 1, the paper proposes that all matter possesses a basic perpetuation drive, and that biological life represents a more explicit and organized expression of this deeper universal principle. The work integrates conceptual analysis, cross-scale biological observations, contemporary findings in bioelectricity and cellular agency, examples of decentralized problem-solving in living systems, and original simulations showing that coherent adaptive structure and natural pattern formation can arise from local perpetuation-driven rules without globally imposed design. It further distinguishes between mechanistic description and ontological explanation, arguing that the discovery of physical or biochemical mechanisms does not eliminate the need to account for the intrinsic agency that makes such organized behavior possible. The paper also presents testable laboratory predictions involving cellular collectives and bioelectric opportunity fields, offering concrete empirical pathways for evaluating the framework. Together, these arguments support the central claim that life and consciousness are not accidental by-products of matter, but are instead built into the fabric of reality itself, with higher forms of organization representing progressively evolved expressions of the same underlying drive.