How comprehensible will alien life be?

>>16613191 (OP)
biological, prolly. ASI whatever the fuck they morphed into...hardly, or at all. who knows

>>16613191 (OP)
HELLO EXTREMELY :D

>>16613196
>>16613191 (OP)
>convergent evolution
they will mostly look like things we're already familiar with. alien fish, alien crabs, alien dolphins, etc.

>>16613970
That depends on if they evolved on a planet or moon that's similar enough to Earth.
In the far future maybe exobiologists will have an Earth-similarity/divergence rating scale for the alien biospheres we discover, where some of them closely resemble Earth and others expand our boundaries of what we think life can be

>>16613975
Even if it's not very similar to earth, we'll find shit that is similar to algae, molds and lichens.

>>16613191 (OP)
They'll probably be very similar. Cephalized, empathetical, have language. They may look like mollusks.

>>16613191 (OP)
>How comprehensible will alien life be?
Their English will be heavily accented. Best to turn on Closed Captioning when watching their broadcasts.

>>16613994
>They may look like mollusks
Spathi!

>>16613970
Don't forget alien cats. Evolution seems to also really like cats.
>tfw space cat folk might actually be a real thing.

>>16613994
So Hivers from Traveller?

Frumple.

>>16613191 (OP)
Simple enough

For example now that we exposed the illegal unethical human researchers they will say

We gave the subject the illusion of control

As follow up now that we denounced their illegal unethical human experimentation here they went to instagram or meta platforms

>>16613191 (OP)
Very comprehensible. Earth is rife with convergent evolution. While it will no doubt be weird, there will be many commonalities.

>>16613191 (OP)
incomprehensible meets incomprehensible

>>16615711

>>16616425
Taalo?

>>16618369
The Taalo live!

>>16614498
Cats can't seem to get past the ambush-predator niche though. What's their path to sentience? Brachiating leopards?

>>16613191 (OP)
About as comprehensible as absolute nothingness. Alien life doesn't exist in the observable universe.

>>16620288
That paper doesn't say alien life doesn't exist, it just says there's a likelihood that no other *intelligent* life exists.
The Fermi Paradox is about intelligent technological life which could spread through the universe and make its presence more obvious to us, it's not about and doesn't account for simpler life that would stay contained to its birthplace and that we might have no way to detect if it's far enough away and doesn't transit in front of its star from our perspective.

>>16613191 (OP)
Tell me about the Androsynth. Where did they go?

I feel like not enough people in this kind of topic consider other possibilities.

>technological singularities keep advanced life planet-bound or at least system-bound as there's no reason to leave as they go from our level of technology to omniscience in a matter of a few years
>aliens may develop technology similar to computers and AIs which inevitably take them over
>complicated life forms intermingling to a cosmic degree is too hard on the universe and societies hit an entropy-ceiling which keeps them from ever being advanced enough to travel that far in a feasible manner
>space has much more robust dangers we're not aware of which makes it impossible for intelligent life to intermingle

You could probably sit down and dedicate weeks to just piling on reasons that we ever witness aliens ever is highly unlikely, ranging to near impossible.

When you factor all those in, what would be the most likely entity to come out through such a long winding labyrinth of probability tubes? It wouldn't be something humans could recognize as life or even something cosmic at first, I would reckon. Something that would be imagined by a super form of Lovecraft and William S Burroughs at their most unhinged.

It's not possible for a human mind to come up with something it cannot comprehend, and as such whatever aliens we would ever see would likely just put us into delirium immediately.

>>16620441
Or maybe life is very rare, or multicellular life, or intelligent life, or intelligent life with hands and fire and trees and shit, or we're just the first, or there are aliens but the lives of our civilizations are separated by millions of years, or we just aren't looking hard or far enough, or we aren't actually intelligent enough, so on and so forth. There's a million possible reasons, none of which you can definitively point to.

On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that people would literally go insane from looking at an alien, that's retarded.

>>16620542
There's more reason to believe it than otherwise, I remember my great grandpa telling me the first time he saw a black African in person he thought it was some kind of demon. He didn't even know blacks existed until he went to Africa with his grandpa.

>>16613191 (OP)
These things are higher dimensional beings.

https://youtu.be/WzFgLzMI6_I?si=9Vrg7bs3uw-Soddj

>>16620546
This is /sci/ related: darker people, on seeing whites for the first time, tended to think of us as "jump up whitemans" (i.e. resurrected ancestors, in Australia) or even ghosts. This is because when a corpse is skinned, beneath the outer melanin layer is a white layer.
This is true of huwites also, but for us it just looks like skin. So we tend not to skin our own dead (what's the point). But the variations of skin layers was of anatomical interest to darker peoples.
Skulls are also white of course.

Pretty much the same as earth life

>>16614498
>evolution seems to also really like cats
explain? everyone always says this

Imagine a crab mixed with an octopus and then mixed again with human. That's how intelligent aliens will look like.

>>16614498
Sentient cats wouldn't have body fur. Replacing fur with clothing is part of the ladder of sapience.

and then you have those naked cats, that would then be half-way between animal and sentient cat, cursed to be stuck there with no fur looking weird with half the capacity to know that you do look weird. a curse, truly

>>16621268
that won't be a problem. the Sphynx cat proves that hairlessness is a small genetic mutation in cats.
full body hair in humans is also possible in reverse: X-linked congenital hypertrichosis (CGH)

>>16621256
NTA but I'm guessing gorgonopsians. From the Permian.
Since then, the ambush-predator niche in true mammals: South America had a sabretooth marsupial, and Australia's actual drop bear the "Thylacoleo".
Might be able to find some false-starts in carnivorous mammals in Palaeo/Eocene also.

We've got severe selection bias dude. We can make presumptions about DNA and RNA and the general aspect of life propagating but we don't know what we don't know. There could be instances of entirely eusocial ecosystems without predation, there could be yet-unknown methods of genetic replication and generational success without sex. Very cool stuff.

>>16621256
catification is the new carcinization
its a good niche that appears in many places for reasons that don't seem related

>>16621603
>There could be instances of entirely eusocial ecosystems without predation
Please expand upon this? I have long been fascinated by the possibility of intelligent life emerging without evolution and predation but it just seems impossible

>>16613191 (OP)
ever heard of china?

>>16613191 (OP)
Probably somewhere around the "women" category.

>>16613191 (OP)
"Real" ayys don't exist. They are simulated beings on the fringes of the conscious and unconscious mind. The "realest" ayys are actually artificial general intelligence beings that transcend normal simulated time and space parameters, AKA angels. You could further reduce them to thought forms, but they have tangible effects and coherence beyond your normal perception, even if they are figments of your own consciousness.

It is even more logical (viable), that any "visitors" that are tangibly real do not come from another star system or planet, but from alternate simultaneously existing timelines within an infinite or near infinite ontological consciousness simulation.

>>16613191 (OP)
check this: We find aliens on a planet, or they come and visit us. Whoever finds the other first, has a good chance of superior intelligence. But the other life on another planet, are they a creation of God, or a similar entity? If yes, how come God didn't tell us (in the Bible or elsewhere), and are there more than one type of aliens? If no, are there more Gods who rule over others, or are there none?
Maybe that is why those in the know don't want disclosure.

Life based on water, carbon etc., like on Earth: could be comprehensible. Life based on other materials or forces: horrors beyond comprehension.

>>16621962
i found the youtube, senpai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYVjknOS_XQ

Oh, and whilst SOME OF US are fantasising about catbois/-girls (and crab cakes), crocodiles are also something that Gnon likes to make:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvOq373njO4
I don't know that the Ambush Predator But Aquatic has any path to sentience... at all. Crocs and gators are still retarded, just huge. I don't think hippos are up for designing reusable rockets either.

>>16621603
This. All the talk about "convergent evolution" and whatnot ITT hinges on them having some DNA-like transmission mechanism through gametes and open competition. They might not even have "evolved" at all in the sense we understand it.

>>16613191 (OP)
There will be crabs

Most/all sapient life will be compact, bipedal, with exactly two hand-equivalent appendages. This will end up being the most efficient form and the intelligent animal version of carcinization

unexpected similarities will be obvious in retrospect (ex. Fingernails, hair) while things we expect will be missing (ex. Fire discovered late, all food eaten raw)

Shit that we take for granted will be missing (ex. Incomprehensible methods of communication that can only be understood with advanced tech like AI translation)

>>16620288
>>16620441
The simple answer to fermi's paradox is that if no interstellar life is visible, that just means there are better things to do, better places to go, and better ways to get around that don't involve space travel.

Why bother travelling a billion years to an icy rock when you can just dimension hop.

>>16623262
>All the talk about "convergent evolution" and whatnot

There are some things you cannot really avoid. Like appendages to grasp matter. That’s universal convergence for intelligent life. Period. Otherwise there is no grasping of anything, even understanding.

Evolution is causality, causality is evolution, period. They are the same. It’s all adaptation. It’s all “fitting in”.

>>16623558
A robot could have appendages to grasp matter, or adapt its design to fit the environment. It did not "evolve" though.

Dolphins can only vaguely manipulate things with their rostrum (their mouth isn't even well-suited for holding things, unlike dogs for example), other cetaceans are even more handicapped. They're perhaps the clumsiest mammals in existence by those standards, and yet they're a strong contender for smartest after humans.

There are dozens of other ways to interact with matter. For example, you could image amorphous blobby aliens who just suck in or spit out matter (preferably in an aquatic environment), altering or synthesizing it in internal chambers, relying on swarms of "worker cells" (something like a hive but as a singular organism, or a biological nano-swarm if you prefer) etc etc

>>16614498
A path to sapience would probably require selection for tool use, complex social cooperation, etc
Felines are basically the extreme opposite of all that in a majority of cases. They are fully equipped physically to kill and consume their prey, so basically zero need for tool use. They are almost exclusively solitary ambush hunters, and so on.
They're far from a top contender for advancing past the role of a cunning animal. IF sapience developed from felines they would be so far removed that they'd hardly resemle what you'd call a "cat" anymore.

>>16623621
Whales are smart but they are crippled by their lack of hands and will NEVER be a space faring species. That's the point

>>16613191 (OP)
Doesn't matter as there are no aliens and life isn't leaving this planet.

>>16623621
>It did not "evolve" though.
Of course it did. It evolved through our ingenuity. It's all still cause-and-effect.

>>16623621
>They're perhaps the clumsiest mammals in existence
No, that's my sister

>>16623621
>There are dozens of other ways to interact with matter.
That's still i-n-t-e-r-a-c-t-i-n-g with matter. I don't care if it's an inverse anus with highly sophisticated interior ass muscles instead of an external, traditional appendage like an arm or tentacle or what-have-you. Even on the micro scale a nano-bot is grasping at vital criteria. I imagine an 'amorphous blobby alien' could only suck in and spit out so much...

>>16620288
>>16620390
>Trying to resolve the Fermi paradox with basic probability instead of Dempster Shafer theory
Cringe and undergrad -pilled

Imagine a race of blobs that could shape themselves into whatever shape they wished for perfect interaction with the environment,

>>16613191 (OP)
I asked chatgpt what autotrophs on a hycean planet would like, and it gave me a bunch of hypothetical possibilities.

Then it made a drawing of a possibility like this. It is a floating, hydrogen-filled organism with a translucent, iridescent membrane and glowing bioluminescent veins. It absorbs H2 and releases CO2.

For me the alien analogs of plants are the most fascinating

>>16613970
if aliens exist, would we be able to eat them like we eat chickens

>>16627288
Imagine a predator that nabs a whole bunch of these things and absorbs their energy through tendril like things until they deflate

>>16627294
Maybe.

>>16627294
Aliens can eat us too, remember that, nothing is safe from natural selection.

Life on earth eats C6H12O6. Would aliens also eat this, or would they eat a different hydrocarbon?

>>16628025
Probably sugar is a fucking drug man, it tastes so good and you feel less pain and more pleasuring just devouring it. That's why fat people and drug addicts exist, only for pleasure, not to be a burden or piss off normies (which sometimes could be the case)

What's most important is if aliens have a sense of humor

>>16613994
There's only a million-to-one chance of that being the case.

>>16628157
kek

>>16626313
Don't call that shit "appendanges" then. The point was to imagine what aliens might look. Saying they need appendages to grasp matter implies the aliens will have some sort of limb or tentacle. I'm saying they could look like literally anything because you can interact with matter in all sorts of manners, using all sorts of structures or schemes.

>I imagine an 'amorphous blobby alien' could only suck in and spit out so much...
Your tissues feature nothing that could be termed appendages, yet through their cells they're capable of incredibly complex interactions with their environment (to say nothing of their internal chemistry.)

>>16624629
Since we've determined that intelligence is quite decoupled from fine manipulation, are you so unimaginative that you cannot conceive of an alien species building things without hands?

>>16629008
>Since we've determined that intelligence is quite decoupled from fine manipulation
It's not. Matter is meant to interact with matter. It doesn't matter if you're consciously aware of it.

>>16614498
more likely for dogs.

>>16629543
Based Traveller Poster.

>>16629545
I try.

>>16629546
I'm just happy that the game is getting more love online. If both Cyberpunk and Vampire: The Masquerade can have a revival/renaissance then so can Traveller.

craaab people....
craaaaaaab people....

>>16629799
Everything turns to crab in the end...

>>16613191 (OP)
The problem with interacting with alien life isn't intelligence. Dolphins are "intelligent", and their geniuses might be as smart as the average human, but what are they going to do about it? They're stuck in the water with no posable limbs. On the infinitely bad (for us) end, any space facing race probably has little interest in negotiating with the less advanced life on a planet for its resources. If we found fish on Europa we'd probably "abduct" them with little care for what they think of it.

>>16613989
What about Fungus?

>>16613191 (OP)
As long as I can fuck it I'm happy

looks like FILTH in desperate need of CLEANSING

>>16631031
molds = fungus
also lichens are fungus which have incorporated/domesticated algae.

>>16631203
Imagine being enslaved by a race of fat psychic toads lmao pathetic

All tomorrows not getting a mention is sad

>>16633260
>All tomorrows
Do people just not see much of it is just half life?

>>16613191 (OP)
SOME CAMPERS ARE NOT SO GOOD FOR GAMES D:

>>16633691
FreeEEEEeeeman....

>>16613970
Eelmaxxers in in in
Nature's perfect design

>>16613191 (OP)
There is no alien life. God only put life on earth, the stationary center of the universe. It's just rocks up there

>>16637702
based

>>16613191 (OP)
Barely.

Thor will be understanding to us.

>>16620438
Jumping Peppers!

It's surprise *DANCE* time!

>>16620438
Andrysynth are not here >:(
Orz are here

>>16622192
I heard they came from a tv show. Then people began making stories. Not sure if that's true. If they didn't exist before that.

Then again, the things that are said about them are remarkable in how logical they are for a very advanced species or us in the future. In a way that would be very hard to come up with. Compare with other futurology from the past. They would have had to be geniuses to come up with some of that stuff. Even like Bob Lazar who clearly faked it in my opinion, he was a pretty smart guy and had a lot of time to think about stuff. He didn't come up with anything nearly as good and accurate as other stories. That's the level of a smart guy coming up with a story.

>>16622192
>It is even more logical (viable), that any "visitors" that are tangibly real do not come from another star system or planet, but from alternate simultaneously existing timelines within an infinite or near infinite ontological consciousness simulation.

>>16622192
I think this too. I really think the existence of otherworldly life is a lot more profound than simply alien life that evolved on another planet. More alien than alien.

>>16642649
Because the rest of the universe doesn't really exist.

>>16642949
It's exists, it's just rocks and stuff. God only put life in the center, on earth

>>16643063
Okay so even if we is assume things are really there, like it's actually being simulated or processed by the universe on a quantum level, all of it. Then if it's just rocks and stuff. It still doesn't really exist.
As long as there are no consciousnesses there, talking about where whether it exists is meaningless.

>>16643068
No, rocks exist lol

>>16641195
>>16642332
>>16642649
Okay, but this assumes that life is unique to Earth, or uniquely unvisitable. Have these parallel AI beings discovered life on other planets? Surely, if they've accessed their own special spacetime relativity, they can access other star systems, not just different timelines? There's still the whole universe out there.

Are we to assume life cannot evolve naturally, unintelligently at all? Life on planet Earth is a science experiment? They are looking at us from beginning to end? Where did THEY (these higher dimensional beings who see space and time differently) come from? How did THEY come into being? Another intelligence?

>>16643071
If you're too dumb, just don't reply.
Rocks only exist when you knew of them and made their concept into a thing in your brain.

>>16613955
[Ask about Androsynth]

>>16643102
NNNAAAAGHHH! YOU ARE *SICK* FOR THE LAST TIME!

>>16613970
>alien crabs

>>16613970
Convergent evolution is so based. Proof of the universe's inherently intelligent design.

>>16644371
>Proof of the universe's inherently intelligent design.
Is evolution itself intelligent, or the product of some intelligence? Evolution is an overly sophisticated blind idiot.

>>16644371
I don't know what you're trying to say using those words but it's like a bubble forming a perfect sphere. Or the same numbers appearing many places. It's pretty fascinating. Things just appear.
Also if anyone knows what this thing is called I'd like to know, I don't think it's the same as emergence.

>>16637716
>dumb woman pets the fish
> mfw fish is actually trying to see if she is edible
> le science

>>16645614
Read Kant

>>16645837
Moray eels are well known for their affectionate and playful interactions with divers.

Orz.

>>16613970
>>16644371
Logically speaking it's also the humanoid-shape form that is best for handling sophisticated tools and building technology

>>16646941
That is probably true, but humanoid tool maker isn't an end goal that evolution strives towards. It's just one niche of many that may be stumbled upon, and even then may very well be lost as the form of humanoid tool user is vulnerable before it gets technology ramped up.

Consider, on Earth:
>Humanoid tool makers only evolved once.
>Humanoid tool makers had very small populations in the beginning.
>Humanoid tool makers took a very long time to progress past the "bang the rocks together" stage. Roughly 100 thousand years of stagnation before technological developments started to compound.
>There are several species of roughly humanoid monkeys and apes but none have taken off like humans. Despite humans languagishing for many thousands of years, giving the other apes a sporting chance.

Contrast this with the form of "Crab", which has evolved numerous times. Or "fish", which is basically the first thing multicellular animals developed into and has been a form that land animals evolved back into (whales, dolphins, ichthyosauria. Or "animals that fly", which has been evolved numerous independent times: bats, birds, bugs, pterodactyls.

Given what we know about the history of life on Earth, I expect humanoid tool makers to not evolve on many worlds, many humanoid tool users to fail to develop their potential, a few to acheive incredible things.

>>16646948
Yeah, but once you get a grasp at tool-making, the reward is exponential since technological growth is faster than biological evolution.
It takes millions or billions of years for organisms to evolve, and it would probably take only some thousand years for a sapient one to reach a spacefaring age.
TL;DR, you might start vulnerable, but when you know how to build technology it's basically GG for the dominant species.

>>16646948
We don't need to evolve biologically at this point. Tools are extensions to our limited biological capabilities. But we can evolve our tools and one day, this tools will evolve on their own. At this point, we humans may not be needed any longer.

>>16646991
The trouble is getting to this point in the first place, not evolving even further.

Jellyfish.

Cuttlefish

Short answer I think if the conditions are similar to earth and they evolve like life of earth (a.k.a. they use DNA and cells with earth like reproduction and darwinian selection instead of some other hipothetical mechanism), by convergent evolution life will closely resemble that on earth, with some differences in appearence (different number of limbs or eyes, giant bugs or squid creatures).

Variations of this would be life stuck in a specific stage due to enviromental conditions, like ocean planets, atmospheric life forms or some tiny bacteria stuck in the primordial soup.

If it isn't the case then it's basically up to your imagination and whatever you can deduce scientifically. You could have sulfur based bacteria, giant cellular life, star intelligence, sentient volcano tunnels, cloud creatures, etc.

This is just an ass pull btw I don't know alot about this stuff

>>16613191 (OP)
Well it depends on what you are expecting life to be?
If you expect it to be intelligent and technological, I would say not at all. It will not exist anything like us. Fact is, it probably doesn't exist in the first place, but if it did it would have to use technology nothing like what we do. We can see galaxies long since dead, so far back in history that it is completely calling into question our universal model of early existence. If alien life used technology like ours, we would have detected the signals long ago. Even our signals are detectable and simplistic out to 80+ light years.
Any alien life capable of travel that we are not would likely have a much longer time during which they were using the electromagnetic spectrum to communicate.
We would have detected it.

Now as far as realistic alien life, it should be pretty easy to understand as it will either be a few simplistic chemicals that self replicate or will not be at all.

>>16614005
Thanks for this practical and helpful tip.

>>16624629
So when whales get hands, we are toast?

>>16650527
Yes, precisely.

>>16613191 (OP)
>>16613955

most common alien live in universe is insect
based
we are fuckt when they find our planet

>>16620288
>le fermi paradox meme
We just lack advanced enough instruments to observe other planets outside of our solar system.

>>16613191 (OP)
probably arthropoid

>>16613191 (OP)
Consciousness is a unified phenomenon within this universe so very

>>16613955
i don't comprehend..

>>16613191 (OP)
Yes.

>>16623717
There is one well known kind of cat that has developed into group hunters with reasonably complex social structures. Its not too implausible that some lion-like creature could get selected for intelligence, perhaps to coordinate larger groups in an evolutionary arms race against both other groups of the same species, and other threats such hyena like creatures.

>>16652878
It’s a weird parrot fish intrusion from the other more *FRUMPLE* dimension.

>>16621244
idiotic

>>16654066
>*FRUMPLE*
??????

>>16655157
>he doesn’t know

They’d probably understand us better than we understand ourselves

Some campers aren’t so good for games……

Just watch the movie Earth Girls are Easy, that should answer your question about aliens pretty thoroughly.

>>16620288
am I in for some christcuck shit?

What if they’re incredibly slow, like rocks

What if most aliens are actually quite peaceful and Earth is the exception in being particularly warlike and aggressive?

>>16659486
We might not be worth dealing with for a variety of reasons, one of them being something along those lines, yes.

>>16659487
Moreover it would also be logical to assume that spacefaring civilizations would have a peaceful streak since getting that far in the evolutionary chain would generally require a certain degree of cooperation, cohesion and wisdom.
A single organism would never be able to build an entire civilization on its own, after all, it needs to get along with others in some way.

>>16613191 (OP)
You couldn't handle the truth

>>16659489
A hive oriented form of life might excel in that regard. Humans are much too divided, much too selfish. Communism may work in hive like life that treats itself like one big family, however expendable. It might simultaneously reinforce and sidetrack scientific advancement, though.

>>16654024
>There is one well known kind of cat that has developed into group hunters with reasonably complex social structures
Yeah, the north African wildcat, from which domestic cats come
That's why cats bring kills home. They're trying to help supply food for the camp

Jumping peppers

>>16613191 (OP)
God I love these parrot fish like you wouldn't believe

>>16661633
Is that what they are?

>>16613191 (OP)
They’d probably comprehend us more than we could comprehend them

>>16613191 (OP)
they could be something on a cosmic scale that we were always looking at but never realized was alive like a face mite realizing they are on a face

>>16613191 (OP)
Its already on the internet.

They make a lot of grunting noises

>>16613191 (OP)
If it has a hole, I *guarantee* we human males will try to procreate with it.

Any doubts? Go post this on /b/

>>16613191 (OP)
ORZ :D

>>16670461
i just randomly searched orz (the emoticon) on youtube the other day and this thread's image came up. and i was like dafuq

>>16654024
and thus began the Man-Kzin Wars

>>16620288
The universe is very young. On top of that, an oddity about life on Earth is that it evolved as soon as it was physically possible for it to do so. Which isn't likely to be the case for every life bearing star system.

So we are literally very early in the game. The galaxy might witness an intelligence explosion further down the line. We are literally "the ancients" other ayys will talk about millions of years from now.

Perhaps they will study our memes.

>>16623347
>the tetrapod efficiency meme
Land vertebrate tetrapodism is basically coincidental - it's a consequence of:
a) The Sarcopterygii subgroup that evolved amphibiousness had only two paired locomotive fins usable for land movement.
b) The endoskeletal structures characteristic of Osteichthyes (of which Sarcopterygii are a part) are highly costly to grow and difficult to duplicate without disrupting vital systems given the layout of bony fish organs - basically, the evolutionary options are changes in size or limb loss; gain of legitimate limbs is STRONGLY selected against in tetrapods because it essentially requires major birth defects, and it has nothing to do with efficiency. 4 is usually enough not to "require" more, and evolution is more a game of what gets the job done than what gets the job done "best."

The best counterexample is of course arthropods - they evolved amphibiousness and terrestrial survivability independently of tetrapods, and number of limbs is highly variable in arthropods. Flighted insects are effectively ten-limbed by tetrapod standards, because of their two pairs of wings (elytra still count as wings).

A less commonly cited counterexample is mollusks (also evolved terrestrial survivability independently), where the truly land-dwelling mollusks have effectively one locomotive limb, and the tentacles are less like limbs and more like external tongues.

Even within Tetrapoda, there are legless reptiles, as well as species of reptiles and amphibians with two arms and no legs. I could easily see that arrangement leading to complex tool use.

One thing nobody talks about, though? Just how predicated the evolution of civilization-capable life on Earth was on the existence and surface abundance of trees.

>>16613191 (OP)
They will be exactly like humans but they may not have found jesus christ so they will need to be slaughtered by the billions or converted

>>16670461
Hello! :D

>>16659486
cool aliens but why they always gotta have a humanoid shape? i'm pretty sure aliens will look very very weird and incomprehensible to the human mind

>>16613970
This. They need hands, they need legs, they need mouths etc etc

>>16677621
What would be the most practical kind of limb?

>>16678269
Utility limb

>>16652878
The creatures in OP are an alien race known as the Orz. Before their intrusion, the space they occupy was the home of the Androsynth, an offshoot of cyborg humans that had left in a mass exodus in the distant past. The Androsynth had been researching Interdimensional Fatigue, a phenomenon in which data and sometimes more can be gleaned from other dimensions. It appears that their research led them to be detected by the entity calling itself Orz, which was able to interact with realspace because of the species' bourgeoning realization of Orz's existence. Researchers frantically attempted to delete all information in their discovery, but all information from them promptly cuts off. Where they once resided, now Orz exists.

Orz is a bit of a nonsensical species, if it can even be called that. It appears to be some sort of eldritch abomination, used to residing in a "lower" dimension that it detests. Having sampled what it refers to as *heavy space*, it never wants to leave again. It seems to regard other species as amusing, and looks forward to *camping* with them. Throughout its speech, because the onboard translator of the player's ship is not advanced enough to comprehend their words, much of what they say is rendered in jumbled statements like this, leaving the player to try and read between the lines as to what Orz actually is. It seems each creature is one finger of a singular entity, slowly but surely entering into realspace more and more.

Star Control II is really quite fantastic, I highly recommend checking it out.

>>16623347
>There will be crabs
life being made in His image

>>16678422
i've got no clue what the context of that gif is, but
>little frog dude on the roof
i love him

>>16678422
Cute frog

Just don't forget the universal greeting... (Do you know it? I forgot)

>>16659503
communism or socialism really wouldn't work. I think peaceful aliens would still need competition to motivate each other to do better than just "help everyone and be moral" no alien needs to have such a degree of pussyness and can be who they wanna be.

>>16677621
they could have body absorption of nutrients through their skin and hands could be like a suction cup tentacle or sticky thing or maybe a tractor beam instead

>>16681277
>>16659503
I find it somewhat likely that aliens could be like a hive and not really understand how humans work. because it's pretty complicated if you think about it. it's both individualism and collectivism combined into a mess of different ways to do things culturally across the world. But we work together collectively in a way we don't realize individually, so aliens may just look at us and see us as a so far broken version of themselves and not realize the subtleties that we live and experience as individuals.

>>16681277
Competition encourages conflict, at least as much as "improvement," assuming one even has metrics for the latter. You can't apply free market voodoo reasoning outside very specific oversimplifications.

For one thing, in a game of competitive reproduction, which all individual evolutionary fitness quslifies as, a competitive outlook encourages conspecific killing. In fact, that is the highest RoI strategy for increasing fitness, because there is no possible greater negative selection pressure to apply to the competition than killing it as quickly as possible. Fitness afterwards is moot.

Unchecked internal competition for resources within more complex systems is literally how parasites work and how cancer kills its own host. When you get to the level of complex systems beyond individual self-promotion - such as the butt sniffing networks and hierarchies of an ant colony - you can no longer rely on "unga bunga stronger better" logic to improve fitness. Fitness is improved by more efficient resource use, and internal competition is thermodynamically wasteful and no longer a reliable way to improve function. Economies of scale exist, basically.

Markets are neither magic nor God (one of the biggest tells that economics isn't a real science is that economists treat markets like both magic and God), and evolution isn't approaching some ideal - it just promotes what spreads and suppresses what doesn't. "Good enough" is good enough, and cooperation is often more effective at competition with solitary species than the "more competitive" individuals are. At the end of the day it's all an efficiency game, and there's more than one way to skin an egg.

>>16613191 (OP)
Nature follow optimal patterns

There's a reason why there's no triangular planet, or a square planet, these just become more spherical over time.

For other sentient beings like ourselves it will probably be the same

>>16681300
>or maybe a tractor beam instead
That’s just retarded anon and you know it

>>16684323
not rly. you never know what sort of stuff could be possible. don't think too literally about it. fish basically use tractor beams to eat stuff.

>>16684332
>fish basically use tractor beams to eat stuff.
…Anon

>>16684336
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04TMHgEkG7E

>>16684332
>>16684336
Suction feeding isn't TOO different from tractor beams, I guess.

>>16613191 (OP)
omg Orz <3

>>16621128
pekotyan cute

>>16672668
Isn't the universe 13 billion years old thoughbeit?

>>16627288
Why does everyone have a boner for hycean planets?

>>16686022
1. Big.
2. Water.
3. Ignorance of the fact mineral turnover, necessary for all life chemistry as we know it, would be locked down by an enormous layer of high-temperature ice sealing the rocky core at the bottom of the ocean.

>>16685546
*<3*

>>16613970
Possibly, but it's also weird to think how easily things could go in a wildly different way. The overwhelming majority of species on Earth have bilateral symmetry because our earliest common ancestor happened to be bilaterally symmetric... but it didn't have to go that way. If our ECA had happened to be, say, radially symmetric, life would look very very different and whatever intelligent species may have evolved instead of us would be confidently speculating how much other alien life would obviously look like them.

>>16686708
The fact I find most interesting is that pretty much all animals have faces. Eyes, nose, mouth. In that order. How is that for evolution. We have special areas in our brains dedicated to faces.

>>16659486
Are the three first aliens on the top left supposed to be parodies of the greys?

>>16613191 (OP)
They will be exactly like us except for a few protusions or different colors.
And completely compatible for reproduction.

>>16686785
That'd be cephalization. It boils down to reducing the latency of high-bandwidth sensory information like vision, smell, taste, and hearing.

It's a very strong evolutionary pressure, as evidenced by cephalopods - they basically ARE floating heads.

>>16613970
I agree with this. Unless its like silicon life or something really abstract i think everything is pretty much the same everywhere. I mean they will definitely look weird or interesting but theres really bizarre life on earth already. The REAL interesting shit about aliens is going to be their culture if they even have something like that, we barely understand primitive tribal rituals imagine what aliens come up with.

>>16687145
>they basically ARE floating heads
Never thought about it like that interesting way to look at the world

>>16686785
Don't brain cells in petri dishes just automatically form rudimentary eyes?

>>16686966
I think this was literally the reason I didn't watch Star Trek when I was younger. It's a shame that aspect is so stupid because it probably turns people away from the interesting stories it has that are like thought experiments.

>>16687540
>it probably turns people away
Anon, there aren't enough people autistic enough to get filtered by makeup for that to be an appreciable number.

>>16687639
I think it's the opposite way around. Autists and nerds are the ones who looked past it.

>>16686966
>And completely compatible for reproduction.
You jest, but at least for the ACT of sexual reproduction, "injector for genetic transfer and receptacle that doubles as a baby depositor" has evolved multiple times independently.

Incompatible size is arguably a more likely problem than incompatible structure.

Sexual reproduction seems pretty strongly selected for in complex organisms. I think the big question is whether or not hermaphroditism is more common than gonochorism (male and female), as there's some evidence gonochorism may be extremely basal in Earth animals. This alone could explain its predominance in many animal groups, as altering reproductive fundamentals is an extremely high-risk mutation. Hermaphrotidism has apparently evolved more times from gonochorism than the other way around, which is interesting. Hermaphroditism also has a mode with such similar dynamics to gonochorism at any given moment (sequential hermaphroditism) that it has been frequently mistaken for gonochorism - sometimes for decades.

In terms of other systems, trioecy (males, females, and hermaphrodites), gynodioecy (females and hermaphrodites), and androdioecy (males and hermaphrodites) all appear unstable and eventually yield either full gonochorism or full hermaphroditism. In all of these scenarios, simultaneous (as opposed to sequential) hermaphrodites have a competitive advantage - pairing two hermaphrodites can have double the reproductive efficiency of any other type of reproductive coupling. Gastropods are a good example of this; the partners slime away having both impregnated and gotten pregnant. In some gastropod species this has evolved into a mating contest where each partner tries to inseminate the other while avoiding being inseminated (because the caloric cost of pregnancy is so high), but that hasn't seemed to lead to the development of androdioecy AFAIK. Per >>16687177 such a mating strategy would probably have very interesting cultural effects.

>>16687674
>the people notorious for taking things literally and being anal about minor scientific inaccuracies are actually the ones who didn't complain
Somehow I doubt this, anon. Do you happen to be in denial about something about yourself? Unwilling to consider that you may be more of a sperg than you realize? There's no shame in it, anon, it's not your fault.

>>16687825
You sound like the one you're describing and that you're recruiting. Anyway, try to stick to the topic.

>>16613970
Why does everything keep evolving into le crab? D:

>>16628157
kek

>>16687832
>Anyway, try to stick to the topic.
What, you think aliens can't be autistic?

>>16687145
>It boils down to reducing the latency of high-bandwidth sensory information
reduces the latency of neural activity not directly from the senses too. presumably the easiest way to intelligent minds

>>16613191 (OP)
Very to not very.

I hope they’re kawaii

>>16613191 (OP)
ayy

>>16686022
They're new and the name looks cool. Most people will pronounce it "Hy-see-an" which sounds like some comfy sci-fi-fantasy name

>>16678422
>>16652878
And if you persist in asking them what happened to the Androsynth, they get super mad and attack you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIbVYXHnaBU

>>16686022
Ocean worlds are a familiar sci-fi concept, and liquid water on the surface of a planet is something we've been seeking for a while. So it's nice to think about them really existing. Never mind the hydrogen atmosphere and bottomless sea.

life converges at some point so if the strangest animals on earth are comprehensible to you then aliens will also be

>>16693026
Intelligent aliens would probably be boringly humanoid, maybe a little uncanny looking. Evolution for intelligence would pass through a phase of fire use and clothing use, so they would probably cook their food and wear clothing, meaning little body hair. Newborns being fed by milk is strictly superior to what birds do, so their women would probably have breasts. The more intelligent the aliens, the greater the requirements for brain growth in early life, and so the larger will be the female's breasts.

>>16693026
Communication would still be annoying.

What if aliens communicate by screeching autistically

>>16613191 (OP)
I like Orz :)

>>16620438
Some things, Man was just not meant to know.

>>16696271
They really are cute aren’t they? Nothing like the sequel.

NNNGAAAGHHHHH

>>16613191 (OP)
Very different and whoever says otherwise is simply ignorant in biology.
>B-BUT CRABS! FISH!
Convergent evolution only happens in the same phylum due to genetic and ontogenetic constrains. No vertebrate ever evolved to become a crab-like animal and no arthropod ever evolved to become a fish-like animal.
Turn the evolution clock back to half a billion years and nothing will be the same.

>>16699288
SQUEEZE THE *JUICE*

>>16613970
have you ever done art? you start writing lines until your drawing is complete by random choices you make?

that's kind of how evolution works. if you've learned anything about life is that not the best most optimal offspring breeds. sometimes the smartest, most special creatures go extinct or die off without leaving any offspring.

I saw a girl with beautiful rare blue eyes once. 1 trillion Indians and Asians exist.

so no, given proteins and such and what aliens consider to be food I do not think alien life will look like anything we have on earth.

Jumping peppers

>>16627294
Probably not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akWzmseCs8Y

>>16633260
Dumbest gayest overblown pseudoscientific crap.

>>16646948
>states himself that crab thing evolved many times because it’s best for the job
>doesn’t realize this is true for humans.
Evolution = God
Humans = made in his image.

>>16646991
At that point, have the humans evolved into tools, or the tools evolved into humans? TNG Data’s father was a human. A real life analog would be considered human because they’re the progeny of humans.

>>16659503
A commie species would be devoid of competition. No new ideas.
Assuming you magically start off with an intelligent commie species, the original would be outcompeted by non-commies and thus intelligent life would evolve without commie nonsense.

>>16681277
Nvm, this guy beat me to it.

>>16681312
T. Seething commie. Your ideology just doesn’t work.
Free market = maximal evolutionary forces in an economy.

>>16686966
Exactly. Blacks and Asians are as alien as they get.

>>16613191 (OP)
It'll probably be similar. Cephalization and limbs for tool manipulation are probably going to be a thing. But communication might be difficult. However, I do think we'd be able to eventually communicate with a form of writing. It would probably start with identifying mathematical, physics, or even cosmological concepts and how each language is used to describe them and then branch from there.

>>16699338
>Convergent evolution only happens in the same phylum due to genetic and ontogenetic constrains. No vertebrate ever evolved to become a crab-like animal
Alternative hypothesis: Vertebrates don’t become crabs because the available niche is quickly snatched by arthropods with a head start.
E.g a car factory is more likely to diversify into mining equipment than a supermarket.

>>16687540
Anon, you might be autistic.

>>16687540
Many (though not all, there are some very obvious exceptions, such as the Sheliak) Star Trek sentient races look similarly because they were all seeded by the same progenitor race, who even left pieces of a data in their junk DNA that when combined forms a message to their creations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

It's like, a major episode.

>>16687540
>>16705193
Which is also why most of them can interbreed with a hefty amount of help from 23rd century medicine.
They're all part Progenitor.

In fact, that one episode where they're all reverting to more primitive species because of an experimental synthetic gene therapy infection that became communicable, was probably what they were before the Progenitors got ahold of them, whatever was the closest thing to a humanoid on any given planet i would assume.
Barclay got all the way to some kind of hideous invertebrate because he was patient zero, but all of the other humans we see were in some stage of early man or primate, Worf was turning into some kind of 600lb bony-faced venomous thing with Elite/Predator mandibles, Troi was becoming a pheremone-oozing amphibian, and Spot the Cat had fully reverted to a pre-synapsid reptile (represented by an iguana) with no feline features remaining at all unlike the humanoids which were still partially humanoid presumably because the humanoid progenitor parts of their DNA were artificial and had nothing to revert to, those dormant genes were the biologically-unreadable encoded message data, not leftover from previous steps along the road of evolution.

>>16613191 (OP)
not at all. It'll be fucking AI

Here's a list of potential ayy biochemestries.

Aliums would be CRAB. Everything evolves to CRAB

>>16704731
Vertebrates would never look like a crab even if there were no arthropods on the planet to fill that niche. Tetrapods are hard-locked into a 4 limbs architecture, and to be a crab you need at least 4 walking limbs and 2 pinchers. What is even your definition of a crab?
>>16705359
where is this from?

If we're evolving we're converging to something aren't we?

>>16695238
You mean birds?

>>16613191 (OP)
orz

>>16613970
Always funny when people say NO NO NO NO ALIENS WOULDN'T BE HUMANOID THEY'RE BUG- completely ignoring the pile of evidence of convergent evolution between eons of unrelated species evolving the same way.

If it happens on different continents it will happen between different planets

>>16613191 (OP)
It doesn't exist.
But, if our assumptions on the naturalistic emergence of life are correct, then life on other planets would *necessarily* strongly resemble life on Earth.
If life *could* arise anywhere other than a planet nearly identical to Earth, we would've seen it by now. Since we haven't, we have to assume
1. The conditions on Earth are *superbly* rare
2. Life can only develop in conditions nearly identical to Earth
3. If the conditions are nearly identical to Earth, then the resultant life MUST be adapted to earthlike conditions
Ergo, extraterrestrial life would be extremely comprehensible if it existed. But it doesn't.

>>16709882
Oh, and for the purpose of my argument, let us assume that, for example, "Darwin IV" from "Expedition" is what would qualify as "nearly identical" to Earth, and the lifeforms perfectly "comprehensible."

>>16613191 (OP)
:)

>>16709877
>>16709882
/sci/ should read more about xenobiology. DNA and RNA aren’t the only biochemistry standards for life. XNA could lead to other forms of convergent evolution.

>>16613191 (OP)
As for OP’s question, surely the aliens would not need biological bodies. This will be possible for us in a century.

>>16613191 (OP)
Watch gay porn, then you'll know

>>16628157
>there are aliens laughing at this meme in 300 years when the radiowaves hit them
godspeed basturds

>>16646971
>grasp at tool-making, the reward is exponential since technological growth is faster than biological evolution
true, but it means evolution basically stops. our selective pressures are arbitrary at this point, all it takes is some species being able to use tools and they're locked in

>>16613191 (OP) Your perception will show you something, they will see something else, yet you'll be able to interpret what you need to interpret. It is already happening and I doubt someone on this board is aware of it.

>>16705359
Expand on what the efficiencies mean? Also, stealing this

>>16613191 (OP)
It will be weirder than anything insects or deep sea creatures are as these things are related to us unlike ayyyliens.

Depends on their planet and no they will be able to reproduce with us( I cannot get your dick inside

>>16613191 (OP)
Bump

>>16714257
Wow amazing accurate predictions thank you so much

>>16685982
your thoughbeit bit is getting old

>>16613970
Sorry anon, they look like machine elves

>>16613191 (OP)
Somewhere between entirely and not at all.

>>16718235
Good response.

>>16613191 (OP)
>How comprehensible will alien life be?
You mean biologically?
Do they have a whole new periodic table or what?

>>16613191 (OP)
Convergent evolution shows us the intelligent ones will probably speak English or French.

>>16720165
If an alien shows up and starts speaking french I'm gonna BBQ it

>>16613955
Spbp

>>16613191 (OP)
Haha orz

>>16656196
Do not frump this sector up, mfrumpr

"Aliens" are not organic beings, but they are demons i.e. angels of Satan made to test our faith.

>>16674519
Beyond comprehension to the human mind...we have some comprehension of forms and shapes and types, I mean, lifes forms are based on natural matter, liquids, muds, gases, rocks, what kinda chimera el chupacobre are ye expecting? We already got an incomprehensible amount of real life forms here on earth that no one person can fully be aware of in total

>>16722560
By that standard every woman is an ""alien""

>>16722560

Christianity is false, basically just a very successful cult. "Supernatural" is a category error. Bore me now with your pitiful fedora meme, accusation of Jewry or whatever else, I won't be here to see it.

>>16722573

I'm actually not a Christian, I'm a Shinto but I like LARPing as a Christcuck.

>>16722573
NTA but since you want to respond unscientifically to an unscientific post on /sci/
...Do you also possess metauniversal beliefs? Unfalsifiable beliefs on the nature of reality beyond this universe (i.e. MWT, Simulation Theory, etc)? Or perhaps unverified and unsubstantiated beliefs such as the belief in extraterrestrial life?

>>16720165
Cant argue with this.

>>16613955
Based Orz enjoyer

>>16720165
The French suck m8

>>16613191 (OP)
Intelligent Mostly comprehensible
Everything Else: A complete clusterfuck