Why would you take this out of the assumption of Will being a discriminator of the living and non living? Because when you materialize consciousness and will, you open the path to acknowledge rocks as beings that just might have their own kind of consciousness. Are you suggesting that this is impossible because rocks do not choose to resist to the outer facts and alter their choices like us living do? Wait until the next geological master plan of the Earth.
Don't you think that the laughable Agenda 21's foresights can act faster than humanity's technology advancement acceleration? Has this become a race between the Earth and technology about who will get knocked out first?
What makes you think so? Maybe we have caretakers of our own and we are the ones that are propagated from somewhere else. What makes you think we are the originals with so much uncertainty on the table.
Vernadsky attributed characteristics of "Life" to rocks and roots, and theorized a universal "Life-Force", which he worked into the Marxist theories of economics and social progress in s similar deterministic fashion. "The Force" is there, therefore, the final victory is assured, that sort of thing. . . . that's why Evolution happens, and so forth.
If you consider the implications of "Will" or "Consciousness" or "Choice" being involved, a certain fixed result may or may not be the result. We could choose to Abort the planet/universe/whatever in that case. Or we could choose to have a world/universe with competitive decision-making rather than central planning.
I don't attribute all things to the same level of choice. I can decide to throw a rock, but a rock can't decide to throw me.
The problem I see with ideas like Agenda 21 and other more or less central or universal plans is that they lose the advantages of competitive choices which allow people to see what works best for their particular ideas of "good". We lose diversity and therefore distributed risks in facing unforeseen challenges.
Any religious person more or less believes in some kind of "Caretaker", but a more "modern" version of religion, like LDS Mormonism, can place mankind in a solid position of stewardship rather than merely a fatalistic world view. Mormons are, imo, great models of the New World Order with a culture that vests tremendous authority in leadership, and places great stress on compliance. Nothwithstanding old doctrinal themes like "agency" and freedom of choice.
If you believe as Jesus taught, which imo places the personal human conscience in the highest aspect, personal responsibility and individual decisions are the things that make us "like God" in most respects, and establishes the individual as the seat of authority on most choices.
Siro might maintain that machines or AI can be made to make autonomous decisions as well, but given the human choice to cross that threshold and construct AI devices, we are still the primary decision makers, however we may choose to distribute that power.
Anyway, I am toying with the idea that intelligence/choice/ will is what discriminates the living from the non-living or establishes a meaningful gradient on the scales of "Life" which can be used to argue that, say, humans are more intelligent than cows.