Moontanman

Would a Centaur like creature be considered humanoid if the raised portion of the creature, human part in mythological centaurs, was indeed more or less human in appearance would that be considered humanoid? John Varley raised this question, IMHO, in his books Titan, Wizard, and Demon. The aliens are so human in appearance that we found them sexually attractive and could mate with them but they were centaurs with three sexes but only two individual sexes were readily apparent. But Gorillas are humanoid but not exactly sexually compatible with us fragile humans. Would sexual attraction cause less than humanoid aliens to be considered humanoid?

It rains diamonds in Uranus... I just couldn't help myself. 🙄 Why? ET life is probable in our solar system, why would we never see it?

I think life outside the Earth has already been found, a new look at old data mixed with new data makes the first Mars landers look for life in a new light. A growing tide of researchers are of a mind that we misinterpreted the data and the landers detected life after all. https://www.space.com/nasa-may-have-unknowingly-found-and-killed-alien-life-on-mars-50-years-ago-scientist-claims

I agree, in fact I would say that "humanoid aliens" is the biggest flaw in the whole "UFO Aliens" phenomena, they look far too much like us to have come from anyplace other than inside our minds. A squid is an example (octopus or cuttlefish is a better example) of an animal with a body plan vastly different than vertebrates. Since there is no reason to think vertebrates are inevitable in the process of evolution, in fact IMHO vertebrates are a fluke and could have easily been passed over by natural selection or simply failed to evolve at all, vertebrates evolved from invertebrates and not the other way around there is no reason to think that the evolution of vertebrates is inevitable or even likely.

Kinda sad really, antigravity antimatter would have been much more useful and interesting.

I've cut up large numbers of squid, I like to catch and eat them, the arms are arranged around the head... hence the name cephalopod. When you cut one up the head becomes obvious but if there are any experts here I would appreciate a call on this... do squids have a distinct head? Personally I'd say an octopus comes closer to your idea but both squid and octopus are highly derived snails.

I'm not sure what you mean, a squid has a head, that head contains the eyes, the brain, and the mouth... and feet or arms but no braincase! True, a praying mantis is almost the poster child of such an idea.

Good point, another flaw in my question, I was asking about more than just intelligence, I was aiming for technologically advanced as part of the requirements as well as form and intelligence.

The first real book I remember reading was "When Worlds Collide" and then "After Worlds Collide" probably jr high school, that was the first time I had access to a library. I am sure I read other books before that but I don't really remember much about them.

Good one and a great song!

How do you define humanoid? None of that would necessarily come about because the planet was identical to Earth. Gould suggested that even vertebrates wasn't a sure thing, in fact eukaryotes aren't a sure thing. Eukaryotes are thought to have come about by a symbiosis between vastly different organisms with no guarantee of similar results on any planet. Interesting idea but odd that nothing like that on a large scale has been found on Earth even in the fossil record. I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. I would assume that on any world with life you would get a myriad of species on at least the microscopic scale ie bacterial level. But once you get to the stage of microbes... what determines where you go from there? A separate head and body was already well established in mobile animals in the Cambrian well before anything like a "enlarged brain" evolved. That depends on the environment and on Earth life has struggled with both hot and cold temps. I think maybe I asked the question in a wonky fashion. Possibly we should be thinking about "is the humanoid form needed to make tools, hunt, process meat and hides, build shelters and such" I am open to suggestions but if this form is needed then our civilization becomes dependant on some wildly unlikely scenarios.

What would aliens look like? Many people seem to think they would be more less human in appearance, "humanoid" is the term often used. But what does that mean and how likely is an alien to be "humanoid"? I guess defining humanoid is the best way to start, a head, a torso, two arms, two legs? By that definition a gorilla is humanoid. Stephen Jay Gould, is his book "Wonderful Life" Gould suggested that rerunning the "movie" of life would not result in the same organisms we are familiar with, even something as basic as vertebrates might not exist if the tape of life was rerun. This would suggest that aliens that resemble us at all would be highly unlikely. However there is the idea of Convergent evolution where vastly different creatures that occupy similar ecological niches often look like each other. Sharks, Ichthyosaurs, and dolphins are often cited as examples. Would this process be likely to produce alien creatures that look like us, ie humanoid? Should we expect intelligent aliens to resemble us? If so how closely?

The situation is tense in my 'hood.

I bet Boebert wishes the Beetlejuice video one was a deep fake.

She might claim a different version but it's all on tape!

They looked so fake to me I was stunned to see them presented as real. This whole UAP thing has gone from a sometimes interesting dog and pony show to the "Greatest show on Earth circus" The Garush guy who came out gave me "lying sack of steaming monkey shit" vibes from the beginning. Once they included Skinwalker ranch in the earlier "revelation" and the ultra rich guy who was running the investigation on the government's dime I knew it was just another layer of BS. Then the right wing politicians began to glom onto the idea... nothing but a feeble attempt at distraction from the crazy republican agenda. I am surprised that MTG and Lauren Boebert aren't dancing in circles around a bonfire howling at the moon over this one. And yes... I am ashamed to have been sucked in by this.