<< A true alien might not fit our detectors, and look so utterly different
that we will not immediately have a reaction. Imagine something that
looks like a glittering cloud with fractal shells - it is too weird
to mean anything to us. >>
This does bring up a puzzle which has confounded me since I was a tiny child:
how will we acknoledge, or WILL we acknowledge some life or Alife ( in outer
space) that is not biological?
It has always seemed obvious to me that our narrow definition of life is
hardly the criteria for such a vast place as the universe.
If such a thing exists we are not seeking it on other planets. We are still
looking for lichen and bacteria? Gas and crystals - or whatever, even if
conscious ,and commucative, would be utterly ignored by our probes.