[mFixman]

The possible shapes of life are much bigger than the universe.

The chances of intelligent life existing outside Earth are lower than the chance of that same intelligent life speaking flawless Swedish. We might as well send some Europop records to space as signals to aliens.

"Intelligence" is a human invention created by humans to describe humanity. It only applies to humans and human-like beings.

[jes5199]

my money is on convergent evolution. trees and crabs and birds on every planet. not sure about primates though

[mFixman]

Trees and crabs and birds appeared very recently in the timeline of life on Earth and will probably get extinct eons before shrimp or tardigrades know what happened.

Life is likely plentiful in the Universe. Earth-like life is almost certainly unique.

[jay_kyburz]

When I said "what happened here" I didn't mean humans, I was thinking more like "chemical reactions that evolve as energy is applied" kind of thing.