Why do (Almost All) Aliens look Humanoid ? - Convergent Evolution. A Legenday Meeting....

As Legend has it..

Sometime in the 1960's, several of the world's best thinkers were set the task of working out why almost all aliens humans encountered so far were humanoid in appearance. (Allegedly) some of the world's top scientists of the day were in the room and they were gathered up under a lot of secrecy for a top level symposium with the above question posed as a real and very serious question. The legend has it that they got through a lot of coffee and sat for days in intense discussions, using the very best of scientific knowledge as it was known at the time. A diverse group of people from physics, astronomy, biology and beyond were allegedly gathered.. and who knows who else was present ?

The Symposium

Convergent Evolution

They set to work discussing the problem and (supposedly) came up with some interesting answers, which make perfect sense to the layperson and I think helps explain an elegantly simple, Darwinian principle to evolution on a much wider, cosmic scale. The answers may also help make sense of understanding the whole concept of visiting aliens in general.

So why do a great many aliens encountered by humans so far, who have obviously bothered to make the trip to Earth, appear in a very similar humanoid form ? and when I use the term humanoid, it is in it's strict definition; not identical but like a human, so apart from a wide range of statures, skin colours, eye colours, head size, eye size and apparent lack of or diminished (other) features, essentially the same basic body-plan as us, organs not necessarily withstanding. Of course, people have reported meeting aliens who would be almost indistinguishable from us, identical in every way. This may shed light on the very nature of our nature itself or it may be a very advanced kind of blending in. Shape-shifting might just be a very polite (if rather advanced) way of blending in with the locals for advanced species. It may be achieved with technology, a total mastery of nature or something else. An octopus can do pretty good approximations of it's surroundings as can chameleons. However It may be down to convergent evolution on a wider scale which we'll dip into in a moment.

purported real alien photograph
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The Elements of Creation

Convergent evolution across the cosmos is not unthinkable if the stuff we're all made of is similar. If we consider that the Universe has a very similar composition and distribution across the Galaxies we would find that our own bio-chemistry of carbon based, oxygen breathing & dependent on water as a universal solvent, type life, wouldn't be that far fetched as a template or model for a multitude of other organisms in far away Star Systems. It may not always be so, but if it's not broken, why fix it ?

This I think was perhaps one of the first conclusions reached by the Symposium. Nature takes many forms on this planet due to evolutionary niche building by Darwinian principles, all from a root life form, so it's not difficult to imagine this extrapolated to very different conditions of heat, gravity, chemical composition (which would likely necessitate some basic changes to nature) or arrive at completely the same outcome, with perhaps a different planetary history.

So if you ever wonder why some aliens looked like insects, perhaps it's a simple argument. They are a very old solution to life. They are very efficient, hardy, tough creatures. They have survived for many millions of years and weathered many storms, droughts and floods. Colony insects developed agriculture (Leaf Cutter ants & mycoculture) ranched cattle (Black ant ranch wild Aphid colonies) and built magnificent cities of mass habitation, security, shared productivity long before humans were even a twinkle in the eye of nature, mammals for that matter. (Bees, Ants, Termites) so in another world, they may evolve into a people like us with technology, given enough time, the right conditions and a bit of luck. (It's a game of imagination, why not ?)

simple bacteria
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Atoms

The basic building block atoms required for our type of life are by far the most abundant in every direction and so are likely to form a basis for the starting of simple life in a similar way to Earths' regardless of a given distance from Earth. (carbon & oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, indeed water molecules are everywhere in huge amounts, not just in our Galaxy, which let's face it, is a pretty enormous place..but everywhere, so that's the same stuff making up the other 200 billion or more Galaxies in every direction. It's no joke to suggest that life (our way of life) is probably the most common, using the most abundant elements as a convenience. The first set of elements in the chain of the Universe to be created are the ones we mostly are, reflecting the space around us. Why would any other life forms be any different. Carbon based life may not be the only source of life and indeed we may be on the brink of creating our own versions of artificially intelligent beings, but for this argument's sake, let's say some aliens are carbon based and thus probably need to eat.

Stellar Nursery NASA

Physics Applies Equally

Subject to the same laws of physics; gravity and the interactions of energy we see on Earth, other solar systems will have similar constituents and similar planetary types. (to sum up, there are loads of earth like planets out there) Some type of plant life is likely to be a common feature of any other ecosystem and it is plants or more accurately chlorophyll which makes up the base structure for the food chain of life on Earth via the marvellous chain reactions of photosynthesis.) It turn sunlight into food and everything else grows from that. (Bacteria and fungi pretty much do everything else, including tidying up and recycling nutrients, assisted by a host of micro creatures, worms, insects, etc.) Again, it's possibly the same everywhere to a greater of lesser degree. Otherwise planets would be miles deep in dead plant matter. Soil of some variety is likely to be the flesh of planets in many places and complex interwoven relationships supporting great inter-dependency of life like the nitrogen cycle are probably not too uncommon to be recognisable as essential in many other places where life exist.

Albert Einstein
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Goldilocks & The Three Planets

Stars which we could live near are similar across the galaxies and common features so Goldilocks Zone homes (liquid water can exist between freezing and boiling) are very common. Our type of pretty average star burns very slowly and evenly and so life has a long time and a fair chance to get going. (to sum up there's plenty of time for life to evolve) & we now know from very recent observations that almost all stars have at least one planet and 25% of them will have a planet in their own respective Goldilocks zone. As Cassini has shown us recently, the Goldilocks zone is not necessarily a deal breaker for life per se. ever widening the potential habitats for life.

Back to Convergent Evolution

Eyes evolved independently on Earth over 40 times because eyes are possibly one of the best adaptations for survival. Eyes are a simple and effective way of gathering information through the medium of light. (it's a big spectrum, so infrared and ultraviolet also may be utilised. Stars are shining light throughout the galaxies, so the 'eyes have it', so to speak. If life evolves in the same spectrum as we live in. The light from a lovely peaceful M star, somewhere bang in the middle of the Goldlilocks zone, they'll probably get some eyes at some early point. Trilobytes had rudimentary eyes. Insects have compound eyes. Nocturnal mammals have excellent night vision. Predators can judge distance well. Prey animals can see all the way around. As you can see eyes are very flexible. (to sum up, eyes are probably as common and useful for anything living around any average star & stereo vision confers accurate depth perception.. so two eyes are better than one. You could in theory have more or many, but 2 is enough for most creatures, including predators like us.) Spiders sometimes have a whole rack of eyes, but that's ok, you can have 8 or ten eyes if you need them. My guess is that it's quite civilised to just have a pair.

Habronattus_coecatus_Kaldari
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Bipeds Rule

Bipedalism is a very efficient form of locomotion and if you have two arms free for carrying and exploring your environment, you can gain an advantage in the environment as you walk along, doubling up function and expanding ability. To make tools you need hands and some kind of grips so thumbs or something akin to a grip is a very handy adaptation. Once you have this ability, intelligence can expands and is accelerated, communication becomes more complex through necessity and as you convey complex information, written language becomes a key to technology and a technological civilisation. (to sum up, without thumbs, you're a Dolphin; very intelligent but not able to drive, let alone build a spaceship and definitely in no position to write the manual, equations and books needed by the next generation who will use your work to continue developing technology over thousands of years from the first wheel to the International Space station and beyond. Not that that's the be all and end all of life in the universe. Dolphins may be wiser than us, but still we built Hubble and the International Space Station.. They still play with bits of seaweed and their own bubbles.

Thumbs Up for Grasping Digits

Another idea about aliens commonly being bipeds is that thumb (or thumb type digit) enabled, button making / button pressing creatures are very well adapted to take over the planet and expand their own ideas, rendering the other competing creatures 2nd place competitively and eventually being able to take nature into their own hands. A useful by-product for longevity of society and access to vast resources, required for eventual space travel, which take a while to accumulate the knowledge over generations. Storing knowledge is vastly superior to the oral tradition. Some form of writing, copying and then later for really complex tasks, a mechanised form of encoding data, like say for example...pushing electrons around, digital information, using varying mathematical bases, binary or hexadecimal. You get my point. There is an exponential rise in capability deriving from the original evolution of grasping digits which becomes a self -fulfilling, looped prophecy

To sum up - aliens look similar to us because they have similar homes, similar conditions, attributes, a similar outlook and were similarly lucky in their evolutionary path, leading them to be the dominant creature able to harness technology on each of their home planets, (or not, yet as the case may be.)

Given this is speculative, they also may be 1,000 or 1,000,000's of years ahead of us on their own evolutionary paths so have incredible knowledge of physics allowing them to travel interstellar and maybe intergalactic distances, they may also be able to prolong life indefinitely or upload themselves into avatars for long journeys or even use remote vessels for exploring. They may be able to develop and use Artificially Intelligent or bio-engineered lifeforms for exploring deep space. Hey they might even transcend space time altogether and live outside of the Universe, whatever that, if possible, even means !

They may have evolved from something similar to our own ancestors on their own home planets or they might have evolved from a completely different branch of life and have a different type of society. For example if aliens did evolve from something similar to colony insects, being very closely related may confer an advantage of collective effort and ability to get along in huge numbers without war, profit or advertising. As such, it's easy to imagine alien societies which progress in a linear fashion without the obstruction of politics, land grabbing, empires, etc. They may in some cases be entirely scientific, peaceful and co-operative societies or they may be warlike and dynastic, very powerful and long lived as societies. I'm speculating because anything may be possible when it comes to life.

One can also imagine very advanced warlike creatures, ever thinking about their next new quest to conquer, new home territories to live in, bigger weapons, faster Starship destroyers. They'd probably also have the big thumb, you'd need one to press the big 'fire weapon' button ;) like the shapeshifting mercenary Mangalore from Luc Besson's the 5th Element

Mangalore
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The Universe is a big place and I'm sure there's room for all scenarios given the phenomenal amount of variety of life on our own tiny blue dot. If it wasn't us who rose up unchallenged to become space faring voyagers, who knows what the dinosaurs may have achieved given another 65million years of continued dominance per chance a huge meteorite collision.. Maybe Dinosaur society would have eventually write down a history and invent the food blender too, destined to become a mighty race of space explorers.

There will doubtless be aliens which we wouldn't recognise but that doesn't mean they couldn't exist. You don't need all of the above to become advanced in capabilities enough to travel to the stars, but to answer the question why are so many aliens we've encountered humanoid; as in 2 legs, 2 eyes, head, arms face, body finger type things, it's sufficient to explain the simplicity and commonality of the inherent features which are so much part of our own existence.

I'm sure there are darting balls of light with no fingers but vast intelligence, or things that look like rocks with an average intelligence of Einstein. There are probably very wise Dolphin type creatures somewhere out there, who philosophically are more interested in their home life than exploring the stars.. and I'm sure somewhere out there, there is a humanoid ape type creature, banging a simple stone hammer out of the local geology in hopes of making it's simple life that little bit easier, wondering what the pins of light in the sky are.

Darwin Would Surely Agree

On hearing about this supposed symposium, it made me think about how a Darwinian type system is no doubt a common feature of evolution throughout the Universe. (I'm sure we don't understand fully the evolution of life yet or how genes work) but we can see from the assembled evidence of the fossil record that life finds a niche and expands into it. Adaptive radiation allows almost infinite possibilities even in the worst of times and if the conditions are similar everywhere, then evolution probably is too, erring towards more complex, sensitive and intelligent beings with better adaptations to their own home conditions as they change over time. Given the time-scales the Universe operates on, it's not difficult to imagine a million Earth's, each slightly different, with a wealth of intelligent technological societies with similar abilities and goals, even with perhaps completely different chemistry and cultures.

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Off the Record

Much later, I was interviewing the Late, Great Professor Colin Pillinger about the future of technology.. and off the record, I mentioned this idea about life being everywhere, because the conditions for life in the Universe seemed so very similar. He said that he thought that based on the idea of the fundamental elements (& water in particular) being so common, that the chance of there being other life in the Universe was 'probability 1' with a conspiratorial glint in his eye that he already knew the answer.