Many theories attempt to explain life through a single dominant process.
Life is described as metabolism, reproduction, evolution, cognition, information processing, self-organisation, adaptation, or development.
APS rejects this reduction.
No single continuity architecture explains life by itself.
Development cannot persist without ecological support.
Ecology cannot accumulate continuity without evolutionary history.
Evolution cannot realise continuity without development.
Cognition cannot emerge without ecological significance.
Social organisation depends upon developmental, ecological, evolutionary, and cognitive foundations.
Life is therefore not one process.
It is a coordinated organisation of multiple continuity architectures that together sustain viability-oriented organised persistence.