This line of thinking is no less subjective than believing an alien life form sits in a chair and eats with a fork and knife like us.
Why should it be assumed that another life form would need computers to do it’’s thinking.
Computer use and machines may be a purely human “trait”.
Other intelligent life may not have a need to go down the path of machine use… why should we assume anything of the sort?
Again, I find this a highly subjective line of thinking.
It depends on how "tight" the patterns of evolution are. I think evolution occurs largely "on rails" with planets in the Goldilocks zone. Earth-like conditions must be present, the planet of a certain mass, certain temp range, certain of water and chemical content etc... it will spark very "earth-like" single cell organisms and eventually very "earth-like" creatures, following a strict and predictable pattern of technological development.
Those earth-like creatures will be not too different from "us" and have earthly counterparts. You will likely find a mouse, a sparrow, and a roach (all)-like creatures on distant planets. I say this because "life" is really a byproduct of physical laws which do not vary. Therefore the "life" produced by those physical laws, when the proper conditions are present to bring it forth persist between fairly narrow but commonplace parameters, will follow very specific patterns resulting in life forms resembling our own. Further, if you believe the accounts of those who claim to have seen extraterrestrials, they are of the bipedal "Star Trek-y" variety (look like us in the main -- maybe with pointy ears like Spock or short, bug-eyed and gray...) not bizarre squid-like creatures of the film Contact.
I subscribe to the notion that "life" -- wherever it may exist in the universe, follows a very tight pattern that does not vary much from life-bearing planet to life-bearing planet. Likewise, whatever breakaway species that develops on distant planets follows a "tight" pattern of technological development culminating in a metamorphosis to machine life as the endpoint of a truly universal evolutionary pattern where...
Sentient life is not dependent on eating other biological organisms, does not "die", does not "get sick", and can exist in virtually any environment -- including space. Generation after generation the endpoint of Darwinism is to maximize sentience (of one of its species) and achieve immortality at the individual "life unit" level of one of its species. The goal of evolution -- achieved through natural selection and Darwinism, is the creation of super-sentient conscious life forms that are not dependent on its planetary origins to subsist, since those planetary origins and/or the conditions present to sustain the life it spawned are temporal.
And what do we see now? Reaching out to space. Development of AI. We are, as a species, akin to ants building an anthill. Doing what we are pre-programmed by external forces (like said ants) to do, and largely unaware of our end goal: immortality and super-sentience. This can not be achieved via biological substrate. A metamorphosis must occur. The process of this consciousness transference from biology-based to machine based sentience, likewise, follows a strict pattern -- math, science, electricity, discovery of the quantum, nuclear capabilities, computing technology using the Von Neumann model, space flight etc. culminating in the shedding of our frail enviornment-dependent, "death prone" biological substrate
... and this has occurred, throughout the galaxy, universe as the product of an unerring pattern -- as unerring as "gravity", I posit. We are in no way unique, but are following a strict pre-ordained pattern in the wake of billions or trillions of high-sentient "break-away" life forms that have preceded us in the universe.
