Sentient lifeforms on other planets are usually portrayed in sci-fi movies & TV as being remarkably similar to human beings. While they may look very different than we do, they eat, sleep, procreate, work, fight, pray (and prey) much as we do.
I suspect, however, that sentient life on other worlds may be so different from our own that we could not begin to fathom the essential stuff of their daily lives, nor could they begin to imagine the human experience...and that's due to evolution.
Let's consider a hypothetical sentient species living on some planet orbiting one of those little lights in the starlit sky.
1) To begin with, let's say that this species receives all needed nutrients from the atmosphere, soil, and light of their own sun, much as plants do on Earth. All needed nutrients are plentiful and readily available to all regardless of location and circumstance.
2) The species adapted quite nicely to the climatic conditions on its home world, and the organism is comfortable outdoors in all weather conditions.
3) There are no predators which threaten our hypothetical species.
4) The species reproduces asexually, with sperm and egg residing in each individual and enabling reproduction without the joining of separate male and female partners in any fashion.
How might this life form differ from our own?
There is no scarcity for this species on their home world. Anything which is needed to survive is present and readily available, so the need to barter or trade one needed item for another doesn't exist here. The concept using of coin & currency as a symbol of value for use in commerce would probably be quite foreign to this species, as well, since there's no need to trade a bushel of hay or a metal coin which represents the worth of a bushel of hay.
Similarly, work (as we know it) wouldn't exist on our hypothetical world. There's no need to trade labor for currency, if there's no need to trade currency for food, clothing, and shelter. (Remember, with both a comfortable climate and a lack of predators, you really don't need a dwelling...or clothing).
Violence and aggression could very well be non-existent in this hypothetical species. Without the need to secure food, a desirable dwelling, or a desirable mate, the "fight or flight" response may have never evolved in this lifeform. The concept of competition, in any form, could be beyond the scope of the imaginable for our hypothetical alien race.
Scientific thought may be radically different on this world. If the need to quantify items for the purpose of trade and commerce never developed, it's quite possible that this species never developed the need for symbolic representation of quantity through the use of a numeric system.
Most human scientific fields rely upon mathematics to some degree. A species which never needed to rely upon numbers as a way of quantifying their world would not have developed mathematics. Would a different symbolic language or system, based upon something other than quantity, have developed as an aid to scientific thought and development, or could the sciences have progressed without one?
We can only wonder which aspects of their own lives are so foreign to the human experience that they could never be understood by the human mind, just as they may be unable to wrap their minds around the concepts of money, work, or mathematics.
It's interesting to consider how evolutionary differences between sentient lifeforms can lead to such vastly different outcomes that the essential stuff of life which one species takes for granted could be entirely beyond the conception of another species.
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