That and their lack of opposable thumbs doesn't help.

No reason.

Dolphins might be close

Place them in an environment that encourages natural selection to have multiple "toes," which can develop into finger-like appendages, and then they could evolve to be intelligent enough to use tools.

Kek

A similar case would be birds.

Birds are extremely intelligent.

Kek [2]

To develop those sorts of things your species needs to live in the tree

There's another thing

Hands evolved for tree climbing

what would non-carbon based life look like

It wouldn't

bruh

There is no substitute for the versatility of carbon chemistry

silicon lifeforms exist

Why bother developing tools when everything that's needed is provided by form?

No substitute at all

No, they don't.

Carbon or bust

you say that

Silicon can't form double bonds or silicon-silicon bonds

@ebinmemes22 which is what I was going to explain until you interrupted me.

but were great at thinking something is impossible

until it happens

By what we've seen so far.

Silicon can't form long *and* stable chains needed for formation of proteins, and thus life.

This is why I keep on appending "maybe."

You *don't* need to be tree-climbing to develop hands. If anything, claws are better at that than hands.

If there were silicon based life, it would have to be very radically different to us

I know it's annoying, but that's the very core of science.

Also, evolution is... weird.

@retxirT actually, silicon would probably be fine in that regard

also i has this thought. could there be an “animal” that would in reality be a plant? could a plant develop limbs and basic organs for non-stationary life?

Still, carbon is better.

[X] *maybe* until it's proven otherwise.

Silicon-oxygen bonds are a thing, and proteins are built on carbon-nitrogen

@robert from kinoplex it'd be ridiculously hard, but not entirely impossible.

@robert from kinoplex no

No [2].