188 | Arik Kershenbaum on What Aliens Will Be Like

188 | Arik Kershenbaum on What Aliens Will Be Like

If extraterrestrial life is out there — not just microbial slime, but big, complex, macroscopic organisms — what will they be like? Movies have trained us to think that they won't be that different at all; they'll even drink and play music at the same cafes that humans frequent. A bit of imagination, however, makes us wonder whether they won't be completely alien — we have zero data about what extraterrestrial biology could be like, so it makes sense to keep an open mind. Arik Kershenbaum argues for a judicious middle ground. He points to constraints from physics and chemistry, as well as the tendency of evolution to converge toward successful designs, as reasons to think that biologically complex aliens won't be utterly different from us after all.

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Arik Kershenbaum received his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology from the University of Haifa. He is currently College Lecturer and Director of Studies at Girton College, University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens — and Ourselves.


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354 | Christian List on Free Will and Levels of Reality

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353 | Alvin Roth on the Economics of Morally Contested Markets

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AMA | May 2026

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352 | Bing Brunton on Connecting the Connectome to the Body

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351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures

351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures

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350 | J. Eric Oliver on the Self and How to Know It

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AMA | April 2026

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Welcome to the April 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patre...

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349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches Us About Quantum Mechanics

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