Recently I heard a professional commentator say on this subject that we would be arrogant to presume that we are the only life in the universe. However, why is it not more arrogant to believe that other life in the universe would be identical to us, in terms of how we define life, such as carbon based and water dependent? We do we keep looking only for planets like our own just so we can find life as we want to difine it? Who’s is to say that life is not the magnetosphere, or a commit is not a form of life, or a photon? Who is to say which creatures in heaven on earth are deemed to be called life? Is that not the real definition of arrogance?
Honestly, I believe that we are looking mainly for carbon-based life because that’s the kind we’re most likely to be able to interact with. They’ve been able to show that silicon-based life is feasible, as are a couple of other kinds, but at least for silicon-based, there’s every possibility that their life is measured in milllenia as we understand time, and therefore any attempts we might make to contact them would be so short they wouldn’t notice. A carbon-based, water-dependent life form would be more likely to have some similarities with us, based if nothing else on similar chemical necessities, and we would therefore have a better chance of interacting with and understanding them. It’s not that we assume all life will be like us; it probably won’t, but for right now, the only kind that we have any chance of understanding would be life based on chemical interactions similar to our own. Let’s get contact with one or more of them under our belt before we go trying to talk to hydrogen breathers, silicon-based, or even energy/machine life.