Whether or not other formations of molecules, Carbon(organic-based), Silicon, or otherwise similar elements of modest combinational reactive potential (Germanium?), outside of our planetary gravity well, have managed to arrange themselves -- despite increasing entropy, yet due to gravity itself -- in a manner of complexity large enough (in magnitudes) that, as an emergent property of its own existence, has given rise to awareness of itself and, obviously, its abilities to manipulate the environment.
Does 'life' exist, outside our planet, or solar system?
"Are" - awareness of object permanence
"we" - the collective consciousness of our species
"alone" - the ability to distinguish ourselves from our environment
"?" - the ability to ponder abstract thoughts
For context, Avi Loeb loudly publicly berated a leader of SETI for not being willing to consider the existence of aliens, evidently unaware of who she even was and what sort of work she was involved with: https://youtu.be/aY985qzn7oI?t=1872
Avi Loeb is the malicious crank who uses theatrical grandstanding to make himself seem like a victim, alienating people who should be his natural allies if he were calm and sincere.
He's the face of the question because of his active pragmatism for an answer -however grandiose or queer - is magnitudes more vocal and free-thinking relative to the passive and resigned attempts of his cohorts at the institutions.
It's sad to see his epic tainted with dismissal so shallowly here.
If, as a certain admired man once said, "“extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”", then surely extraordinary thought processes, ideas, and science may be needed.
It is not a virtue to be very loud about your research when you don't have the receipts to back it up. Material science just had a huge to-do about this with LK-99. People who are serious about finding extraterrestrial life don't make so much noise as Loeb - because there's not much to tell.
But the progress is actually tremendous. With the JWST we've been able to identify a chemical reaction in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time. We've recently "mapped" a planet outside our solar system for the first time (granted, the map was 1 pixel, identifying one part of the planet as darker than another).
This is the kind of work that could potentially identify extraterrestrial life. It's entirely possible (dare I say likely? That's a lay opinion to be clear) that we are, right now, gathering the data that will result in the first detection of extraterrestrial life (to be clear, I mean more along the lines of "extraterrestrial trees" than "little green men"). But it's slow, methodical work. And it could easily take several more decades.
>that we are, right now, gathering the data that will result in the first detection of extraterrestrial life
I agree; although bio-signatures may be the most currently poignant way of predicating the existence of life, there is almost always a suspicion of doubt - since its impossible to prove a negative - that some signatures may actually be of natural origin.
Techno-signatures, however, colossally mute that chance; and I hope we happen upon that vicissitude in our lifetime, however astronomically improbable that may be, from out light cone, to another.
OK, but you get that there are multiple whole fields of academic study on these topics, right? Loeb didn't conceive of any of this stuff; the field for the most part doesn't really need our ideas or intuition on where they should be looking (unless you want to put the work in to contribute to the field yourself).
Does 'life' exist, outside our planet, or solar system?
"Are" - awareness of object permanence "we" - the collective consciousness of our species "alone" - the ability to distinguish ourselves from our environment "?" - the ability to ponder abstract thoughts