Scientific ideas of living and non-living have developed from an understanding that is common to many cultures.   Like you, many cultures distinguish between living and non-living things and between living and dead things in a scientific way.   Ideas from these cultures have helped produce scientific ideas for classifying living and non-living things.  

This does not mean that other, non-scientific ways to classify are wrong.   Different cultures can have different, non-scientific ways to look at and explain the world too.