[simonh]

Random genetic mutation did it, and I think our technological progress is running at a much faster rate than evolution. We went from stone tools to submarines and fighter jets in just a few thousand years, the kind of advances biological evolution would take millions or billions of years, or could never achieve at all due to path dependence.

[mensetmanusman]

If it is from a random process, then the universe is teeming with life :)

[simonh]

Maybe. It could be a very unlikely random process, at least to start with, or the conditions for it to occur might be unlikely.

[mensetmanusman]

Unfortunately it seems the laws of physics and the speed limit/rate of information travel make it an impossibility to ever know. E.g. traveling to every planet in the universe to check.