(Please don't read the following if you have strong religious beliefs or are easily offended. I don't want flaming about it, this is my opinion, and I don't want it 'corrected' or offended.)
I have always believed in life on other planets, because most of my views on life are based on a biological theme. Of course, there is always the ultimate 'why?' we are surviving, but I don't think about that. I think of all life trying to have their species survive, and we evolve to do that better as our environment changes. A single individual's lifespan purpose is to live, to breed, and then to die with the hopes that their offspring will carry on the species.
I'm not trying to be accurate in this next statement, but it is a summary: we evolved with brains to survive hard times around the Ice Age, and our brains kept evolving because it was found that intelligence was more vital to survival than brute strength. Using tools was a lot more efficient than using fists, and to know whether a food was poisonous or not could save a life with a choice.
Why do I digress? In my view, life is biological. I shouldn't be thinking about this so much for my age, and I feel worthless at times because I am one person in this world of people, but 'life' is always trying to find new ways to survive. That means, if a planet has the minimum requirements for it to start, it will start, and it will attempt to flourish. This fails sometimes.
Also, life does not have to be sentient to be called life. If they found bacterial cells on Mars, and the question of life only being on Earth is a yes/no one, then the answer is clearly no. Life is life, whether it gets very far or not.
There can be anything in the next galaxy. Humans with tails, dragons that speak, hell, there could be mollusks that evolved into slig-like things for all we know. If their environment is fit for it, it will evolve accordingly. Things start small, and they only grow. Is there intelligent life? Again, it depends on their environment whether intelligence is best suited for their species' survival or not. The universe is vast, so it will always be easier to say 'yes there is' than 'no there isn't'. We can't know everything for sure, and unfortunately, we probably will never know unless there is some way to travel that far out into space.
(/theoretical hootnany)
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