Except the universe is probably nothing like we imagine. This story is the modern-day equivalent of tales of sea monsters and sailing to the edge of the flat world. What is the probability that evolution would result in a "life form" anything like us? And by anything like us, I mean anything which can understand any of the concepts we understand? That includes all of the theories of mathematics we impress ourselves so with.
"What is the probability that evolution would result in a "life form" anything like us? And by anything like us, I mean anything which can understand any of the concepts we understand?"
Pretty good, in this universe at least. Every intelligent creature in this universe has to be able to do the same basic things: reproduce, manipulate objects, fend off predators, etc.
There's a theory, commonly used in economics and international relations, that competitive pressures force most groups at the apex of a system to think, act, and behave pretty much the same. For example, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States, despite their radically different concepts of how to run a government, each behaved roughly the same on the international stage. They built coalitions and acted pretty much universally in self-interest.
The same principle probably applies to organisms. The same competitive pressures probably force intelligent organisms to develop similar mental frameworks.
This isn't to say that ET will look anything like us. Just that he'll probably understand patterns, numbers, and the like, because understanding those things are what this universe rewards.
Pretty good, in this universe at least. Every intelligent creature in this universe has to be able to do the same basic things: reproduce, manipulate objects, fend off predators, etc.
That's a very small scope of 'basic things' - it very well might be that it only applies to the results of evolution on earth. What about evolution in our universe on scales that aren't our size, that don't move at our speeds, that aren't made up of carbon/oxygen/etc?
What is there to stop an evolutionary processes from happening inside a star? It doesn't have to be our star, it could be a red giant - with entire complex evolutionary "life" constantly being created and destroyed in a matters of seconds - to them, the star is the accessible universe - it forms the fundamental fabric of their existence.
What is there to stop evolutionary processes to happen on a quantum level?
Most things in the universe don't happen at our speeds, and they don't happen at our size. And get really not-like-this-universe when you start thinking about relatively big things, or relatively little things.
I think this is a good point. The number of possibilities is too great to imagine, and there very well could be some type of life I simply can't envision.
"What is there to stop evolutionary processes to happen on a quantum level?"
There are entropy constraints on the conditions under which life can evolve. There must be a persistent storage mechanism that degrades at a certain rate. Too fast, and the mutations pile up and the organisms all die. Too slow, and evolution can't operate. I suspect that most possible life would have to rely upon carbon-oxygen or something similar.
