Are most organisms symmetrical? Most organisms are bacterial, and I think a lot of them are symmetrical, except for, of course, spirochaetes. Since he is a human studying extremophile bacteria, this declaration makes sense.

However, most eukaryotes are not symmetrical at all, because most eukaryotes are things like plants, fungi, algae and other protists that are definitely not symmetrical. One only has to think about the beautiful symmetries of flowers. Eye-catching, right? Why are they eye-catching? Because their symmetry stands out in the chaotic mass of fractal plants that covers so much of the landscape.

Do I expect alien intelligent life to be assymetrical? Not particularly. However, that’s because this primitive human can only define intelligence by how it interacts with me, and that requires things like moving symbolic communication. As a counter-example, plants have some amazingly complex interactions with their local environment–symbioses with fungi, bacteria, pollinators, chemical communications with other plants, competition with plants, anti-predator devices, and so forth–yet even if there is a controlling intelligence behind all this, I can’t communicate with it, and therefore, by default, I treat it as unintelligent.

Problem here is, intelligence can only be determined through interaction, and a truly alien intelligence would probably not even be recognizable by us, even if we lived together.

Dr. Mancinelli made a good contribution here, but inadvertently, he also showed how our biases shape what we’re looking for. It’s an important lesson.

Much of this comes from practical decisions, of course. It’s easier to put a costume on an actor than it is to create something truly novel with which the audience might not be able to identify.

An alien life form, therefore, would most likely be symmetrical. The type of symmetry would be influenced on the environment in which it lived. From our basic knowledge of survival of macroscopic organisms whether they be aquatic or … What Are Alien …