Most of the comments here make an assumption that aliens would have similar motivations as ourselves.
Is there a chance that another intelligent lifeform would share ANY mental or emotional similarities with us? This assumes that they even have mental or emotional capabilities in the first place.
An alien intelligence could express itself collectively like an advanced ant colony or they could communicate in ways so different than us that we would each appear like brute beasts to each other.
If a giant amoeba colony that developed intelligence by acting as individual neurons in a collective brain we wouldn't even know unless its actions betrayed higher level planning and thinking. This would require that its motivations were at least marginally similar to our own.
I have no problem believing that, if there is alien life, that many of them are quite different.
I do have a problem believing that there is lots of alien life and all of them will come to this guy's "it makes sense to me so it must make sense to advanced aliens" conclusions to say home.
Is there a chance that another intelligent lifeform would share ANY mental or emotional similarities with us? This assumes that they even have mental or emotional capabilities in the first place.
An alien intelligence could express itself collectively like an advanced ant colony or they could communicate in ways so different than us that we would each appear like brute beasts to each other.
If a giant amoeba colony that developed intelligence by acting as individual neurons in a collective brain we wouldn't even know unless its actions betrayed higher level planning and thinking. This would require that its motivations were at least marginally similar to our own.