We may never be able to answer definitively, but another theory is that the evolution of life is a series of steps, some with highly probable pathways (lipids w

We may never be able to answer definitively, but another theory is that the evolution of life is a series of steps, some with highly probable pathways (lipids with hydrophobic tails forming enclosed boundaries) and some extraordinarily improbable (formation of eukaryotic cells, incorporation of mitochondria). The book The Vital Question by biochemist Nick Lane goes into this in great depth. https://nick-lane.net/books/the-vital-question-why-is-life-the-way-it-is/ https://nick-lane.net/books/the-vital-question-why-is-life-t... He estimated that simple, single celled prokaryotic organisms should be pretty common when the right conditions and probably happened multiple times independently on Earth, but eukaryotic mitochondrial cells may have only happened one single time and all complex life is descended from that one cell. I believe that was covered in https://lexfridman.com/nick-lane/ https://lexfridman.com/nick-lane/) that