I’m no physicist/biologist, but I always find it odd when they look for water on other planets to see “if life could exist”.
Sure, maybe that’s a requirement for the type of life we on earth know about, but I don’t see why other elements couldn’t have also formed in just the right way to be able to reproduce, and maybe eventually “think”.
It's a matter of water being a great place for carbon based chemistry to occur. Why carbon? Because it is so dynamic. It readily forms complex molecules which interact in interesting ways.
Looking at other forms of chemistry we don't see much as naturally varying as carbon. Though I have heard some chemists and biologists hypothesize about sikicon based life. At high temperatures it forms the kinds of dynamic connections that carbon does.
Sure, maybe that’s a requirement for the type of life we on earth know about, but I don’t see why other elements couldn’t have also formed in just the right way to be able to reproduce, and maybe eventually “think”.