re: #62 Targetpractice

The problem, at least from my viewpoint, is that we’ve always tried to think of god or a pantheon of deities in human terms. As much as we may have advanced in our understanding of the universe, we still have a long way to go. And as insulting as it may be to some sensibilities, we humans tend to be very limited in what we can imagine when you think about it. We still have a hard time rationalizing the idea that aliens might resemble us as much as resemble cockroaches.

There are certain constraints the universe throws at us that can guide our assumptions about what aliens might look like. By definition we assume intelligence includes communication, tool use, knowledge preservation and transmission to following generations. We can safely assume life requires some form of self replication subject to selection.

Evolution isn’t an optimization, nor is intelligence the ultimate goal, so there will be a limited number of paths available to reach intelligence.