Life increases net entropy faster.

Conservation of angular momentum. Have to figure in collisions as that allows changes in directions.

As for the Big Bang and time = 0. It is a bit more than that. Before the Big Bang there wasn't any time, mass, energy, the rules of physics actually come with the universe they are deployed with. They are bounded to the universe that creates them. The half life of protons to neutrons in a particular universe may vary.

Interestingly enough the rules of evolution might actually be applicable at a multi-verse level. In other words they hold true in multiple universes.