You keep saying it is simple. It isn't. Since you don't want to get specific here's something to consider. If you believe being alive is the domain of the organic only then you must believe there is no realm beyond what you can physically sense. If it's "simple".
There is no proof that something has to be alive to be intelligent. That is a red-herring.
There are even examples "collective intelligence". Ant colonies can create an intelligence in aggregate that far exceed the intelligence of any single ant. These systems display all the hallmarks of intelligence and information processing in aggregate that none of the individual components possess.
Heck even what is "alive" is a surprisingly hard definition. What a group of biologists argue over if virus are alive. Nature is far more complex than hairless little monkeys can fully grasp and feels no obligation to fit in nice neat little categories our little monkey brains can wrap around.
"Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think." - Werner Heisenberg