Alien Species

[thekillman]

well, imagine a society of a truely Intelligent species? what kind of beings would we look at

[Character]

They could be anything, realy, its very much a matter of their enviroment. IMO, its all about evolution, so the species that dont have any particulary impresive physical atributes (strength, speed, great eye sight, poison, etc.), yet has enough traits, needed for survival (beeing omnivorous helps to find food, sustain bigger population; being social/pack based helps to socialise and interact), such a race would have, imo, much higher chances to become inteligent on a human level. This is because life follows evolution, so if a creature has a highly effective means of survival already, like speed and strength of the big cats or the poison of snakes and spiders, then such a species has little need for inteligence or any other radicly different traits, as they are perfectly adapted to their enviroment already.

In other words, from what i understand about evolution, any species could become inteligent, given the right enviroment, theres no one or two that would be more or less likely then the rest in absolute terms, only in a particular enviroment the chances would vary.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

well, imagine a society of a truely Intelligent species? what kind of beings would we look at

Like Character said it depends upon the environment they've developed and evolved on.
I'd imagine that Reptilian, amphibious, humanoid, none humanoid, silicon, sulphur, even energy are all possible and probably based around elements and designs that we can't even imagine.
TBH if Humans could actually leave the planet and travel around at FTL speeds then there would be species that are so far beyond us that we don't even recognize them as being intelligent, that's a humbling thought too me.

IMO much of the sci-fi stuff could be right, you know with variations on Humanoid life forms, things with more arms and legs, tentacles, groups of separate cell lifeforms that communicate with each other and appear to be intelligent and problem solve.
I guess in the end it all depends on what skills other life forms need to survive.

[ggf31416]

While sentient marine life seems likely I doubt they would have a space program. They would prefer to study the ocean deeps rather than the stars and developing a flying machine under water probably itsn't very practical.
Avian sentient lifeforms wouldn't have many problems with aerodynamics but their ligther bones wouldn't help them while mining resources.

[Splitsecond]

Sentient isn't the correct term, this means an ability to feel pain. Much of the animal kingdom is sentient. Elephants, dolphins and gorillas are all self-aware (a new born human is not self-aware). Sapience (the ability to think about thinking) is something that has yet to be found in other animals. Humans don't seem to be special when it comes to our capacity to think, learn, communicate or socialise. We perceive ourselves as slightly better at these things because what we hold as the height of development is the stuff we are capable of that no other animal seems to do.

As for evolution on other worlds, there's no way to tell. There could have been multiple life-creating events on Earth that resulted in wildly different evolutionary paths, but we don't notice the other types of life are alive. What if one group of single-celled organisms had never merged with mitochondria? Nothing like the life we have now would have evolved. There's no reason for fish (vertebrae) or birds (feathers) or insects (Spiracles) or mammals (warm blood) or reptiles (lungs) to have ever formed. The brain doesn't need to evolve at all, so there's no reason to expect anything on another planet to look like something on Earth and to have human-like intelligence, but that doesn't mean that we're special.

[thekillman]

assuming an earth-like planet enviroment. i mean, stargate has dozens of them.

but generally, anything is possible?

[Splitsecond]

A lot of things are possible, but almost all of them are improbable due to the shear scale of possibilities and the number of events it would take to get there. The modern condition of the planet is mostly irrelevant, it's the past that's important. Also the plant life on the planet may be wildly different. If the early atmosphere is like Earth's, then carbon monoxide is the best atmospheric source of fuel early on during the first colonisation for photosynthesis and because sunlight is the best fuel, photosynthesis is the best process. Oxygen would be the best gas to use for fuel combustion, but the emergence of mitochondria would be very important. Look up the tree of life, every branch on that tree is less and less likely from the start conditions and requires a very precise sequence of environmental changes. Humanoids are probably very unlikely to evolve on planets like Earth. Wings evolved several times, so they're a relatively safe bet, but eyes only evolved once.