> I think almost everything exhibits some kind of swarm intelligence ... I'm being handwavy here because I don't have a rigorous definition for life

Perhaps before getting too philosophical about defining life it would be useful to provide a rigorous definition of 'swarm'. Then we can debate whether specific organisms swarm or not, as opposed to just being alive and in groups of two or more individuals.

For example, my intuition is that orangutans never swarm in the way that starlings or anchovies do.