We may never know since it seems to be the nature of life to eat everything.
True, and that makes for having some great fun with the cosmologists.
Intelligent life eats all the matter and energy in the universe and then eats each other: bringing all matter and energy in the universe back together for a "big bang".
Assuming intelligent life can overcome all limits to it's growth it's a blindingly obvious progression.
But it's a theory of creation that's frustratingly of absolutely no use. It explains nothing and gives no useful insight into physical laws.