1. The universe is so unimaginably vast that I think it’s almost certain that watery, carbony, cell-based lifeforms exist elsewhere.
2. Our definition of “life” is sort of weird and arbitrary. Basically, we define life as anything that’s based on a cell structure. Cells are made of of lipid membranes the enclose a watery solution with carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids. The last ones can store data. The data can copy itself, along with the entire structure of the cell.
The lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, and nucleic acids, in turn, are each composed of chains or groups of smaller molecules and atoms, found in abundance on Earth.
What we call “life” is actually an extremely complicated group of patterns. Such patterns evolved on earth around the unique conditions here. But I seriously, seriously doubt that they are the only kinds of patterns that can give rise to the kind of thing that we call “life.” I think that as we explore the universe—and also as we explore the boundaries of biology and chemistry—we’ll see that our definition of “life” is actually quite parochial.