Are you sure that all life is chemical? There's a common belief here that a sufficiently good computer simulation of a human being counts as being that person (and presumably, a sufficiently good computer simulation of an animal counts as being an animal, though I don't think I've seen that discussed), and that's more electrical than chemical, I think.
I have a notion that there could be life based on magnetic fields in stars, though I'm not sure how sound that is.
I guess it depends on your philosophical position on 'simulations'. If you believe simulations "aren't the real thing", then a simulation of chemistry "isn't actual chemistry", and thus a simulation of life "isn't actual life." Anyways, the definition I gave doesn't explicitly make any distinction here.
About exotic forms of life, it could be possible. A while ago I had some thoughts about life based on quark-gluon interactions inside a neutron star. Since neutron star matter is incredibly compact and quarks interact on timesca...
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