Well, for life to emerge you likely need some kind of liquid medium/solvent to enable chemicals to move around and interact with each other. It's hard to imagine how that could happen in a solid/frozen environment.
So, assuming a liquid solvent as a basic requirement, the next question is, what sort? There are other options beyond water, but water actually some unique properties that make it a potentially ideal medium - not least it's less dense when frozen. This meant the seas in early earth never completely froze, with liquid water remaining under the surface. If ice was heavy than water, then ice would sink, the oceans would likely have completely frozen, and no life would have evolved.
Ice is a really interesting material in a number of ways--especially in conjunction with liquid water. I worked in a very different area that he was also researching at the time but my thesis advisor went on to create an ice lab and was probably one of the world experts on ice. (The US Army, especially in the 80s, was very interested in all sorts of things about cold regions--for obvious reasons.)
So, assuming a liquid solvent as a basic requirement, the next question is, what sort? There are other options beyond water, but water actually some unique properties that make it a potentially ideal medium - not least it's less dense when frozen. This meant the seas in early earth never completely froze, with liquid water remaining under the surface. If ice was heavy than water, then ice would sink, the oceans would likely have completely frozen, and no life would have evolved.
More discussion here: https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/uncategorized/2019/biological-r...