It makes no sense to think of life as optimization of a utility function over three-dimensional slices that stays the same over all time, since there's no end state we want and no fixed state we want the universe to be locked into [...]

If that was true, it would represent a refutation of Dewar's maximium entropy principle - as applied to biology. Unfortunately, the logic doesn't seem to make any sense. Water can still act to maximise a utility function by flowing downhill - although it has no thought of the distant ocean.