No. It is the cells definition and construction, one it spends considerable effort maintaining and the moment it stops maintaining it, it loses life. There’s really no two ways about it. You need a buffer from the environment to be alive. Otherwise thermodynamics will take its course right away.
Really? Cells put forward their own definition? So you think they are conscious, thinking beings?
There are certainly theories to that effect. But whether you stretch it to consciousness or not, each cell actively defines its boundary, and this boundary can change over time, to accommodate experience, and to promote anticipation.
Cells are autopoetic. They write their own experience.