Living Systems is from this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_systems. Even if he goes too far with his theorising, the basic idea makes sense -- living systems are those which self-replicate, or maintain their structure in an environment that tries to break them down.

Thanks for pointing out that my use of terms was sloppy. The concepts of "intelligent" and "alive" I break down a bit more in the blog articles I linked. (I should point out that I see both concepts as a spectrum, not either/or). By "intrinsic goals" I mean self-defined goals -- goals that arose through a process of evolution, not being built-in by some external designer.

My thoughts on these topics are still confused, so I'm in the process of clarifying them. Cheers for the feedback.