What type of biological life will more than likely be found on other planets?

If the evidence doesn't show it then I am, in fact, not free to believe it. Other methods work better in their limited environments. Other methods work sooner in the time line. Other methods rely on sheer volume of reproduction. It is directly because of the success of these lines that more intelligent critters are selected for. Extend this for a few billion yrs and you get Mozart.If you have life and you have time.

Hi, Jar. We can't know this: it's just a hypothesis. Let's look at octopus again. They don't live very long: usually just a few months, or, in some species, a few years. But, they don't need a few months to learn new tricks: they can figure out screw-top jars in a matter of minutes. Clearly they have enough time to learn the trick of tool use, so is lifespan really an issue?Also, some people have suggested that octopus are capable of observational learning (i.e. learning by copying other octopus). If true, then tool-using behaviors could feasibly be transmitted in the absence of a pervasive social system.Your concept of "need" is a very interesting idea, though, and one that I think is probably highly important. It could be argued that octopus already have a multi-tool for a body --- with a beak, a drilling tongue, venom, prehensile tentacles, ink, chromatophores, a water squirter, and suckers --- and so any tools they could make may not provide any useful advantages to them.Humans, on the other hand, do not have a particularly impressive suite of biological adaptations: without our tools, we'd probably be an easy target for most predators, and we'd have trouble killing food or competing with monkeys for fruit. Maybe that's why we developed tools: because we are pretty pathetic without them?

When we talk about what life we will find on other planets it is all speculation.Remember I am saying that "human intelligence" (and the concept of technology and knowledge accumulation and transfer beyond the immediate person to person) is the result of a confluence of a whole herd of factors.Lifespan is one factor. In a short life span there is simply limited time for accumulating knowledge and unless there is some method of accumulating and passing on that knowledge and transferring the knowledge beyond the immediate group knowledge gained in that short lifespan gets lost.On need (and I'll try to tie it into the above); need (and desire) drove another uniquely human trait and that is "trade". The idea of taking something readily available in one area to an area where it was not readily available and trading it for something that was in short supply somewhere else is one of the things that indirectly led to the human transfer of knowledge and technology.Looking at the example of other animal we see something entirely different, the animals going to the source. Again looking at the example of the imagined "Mental Society" since going to where an item is is easier than moving the item slowly through trade it's unlikely trade as we know it would develop.

If going to where the item is was always easier than bringing the item to those who wish to utilise it trade would never have developed.Trade is a result of communication and the ability to reason abstractly. Both of which are aspects of intelligence......

Of course intelligence played some part, but other intelligent critters did NOT develop trade.Like the other "human traits" it seems to have developed only once.It is just another example of unlikely things to find in life on other planets.

Nor does it seem they have developed the ability to think abstractly to the extent humans have, nor have they taken control of their environments to the extent we have, nor have they developed the technology that allows us to overcome our physical shortcomings etc. etc. etc.In short no other critters on Earth have developed the level of intelligence exhibited by humans to give us the adaptive advantage that we possess.That intelliegence provides this adaptive advantage is what myself and others (most comprehensively Bluejay) are saying. That such adaptive abilities would also be useful and thus potentially naturally selected for in other alien environments is also being suggested.Why you think an attribute that aids adaption isn't likely to evolve more than once in the vastness of the universe remains very unclear.

I'm not sure that thinking abstractly is really a measure of intelligence or how that could be tested in other critters.Why I don't think it likely is really pretty simple.First, in the billions of species that evolved in the one sample we know of human type intelligence only developed once and no other intelligent critter developed anything like it.Second, it does not seem to be a bigger advantage than other strategies like being fecund or using a readily available energy source like the sun (as plants do) or any of the many, many other successful strategies.

Do you think that human-like intelligence facilitates adaption to, and control of, the environment to an extent that aids surival?

Only when you expand the term so far that it has no real meaning.Intelligence is only a small part of what drove human development only because all those factors happened to come together did we become what we are. Even then it is not "Humans" in general that developed the technology or accumulated the knowledge to be transferred but rather a really small subset of humans.

All of the less intelligent creatures also have some level of intelligence. Intelligence at some level seems very common. The main difference is the amount that we have and that we have surpassed some threshold where the benefits become exponential.

Not all that common, it is still by far the exception than the rule.Again, I doubt that it is an intelligence threshold, rather the result of many different factors most unrelated to any increased intelligence.

If all of the animals that have brains also have some level of intelligence you can't call that uncommon.

Of course I can. There are far more and have always been far more living things that have no brain, and it ain't even close.

No you cant. There may be way more plants than animals but animal life is common around these parts.

It's not just plants but all the single celled life, the insects, and much of the animal life.