I posit that out intrinsic drive to explain everything as though it's origin was from a thinking intelligence similar to our own is what causes us to misunderst

I posit that out intrinsic drive to explain everything as though it's origin was from a thinking intelligence similar to our own is what causes us to misunderstand a great deal about our reality, and more specifically, about the possibility of alien intelligences. We do this, for example, with our pet dogs, ascribing anthropomorphic qualities to their behavior. While it may be true that a dog can experience emotion, they do not (likely) experience it the way we do. When it comes to these ideas about an alien civ traversing the cosmos (or staying home) we can only think about it in terms of the arguably tiny box that is our perspective. While this position has proven pretty useful to us so far, unless we learn to remove ourselves from the box, our explanations on the grander scale of galactic civilization and technologies beyond our understanding will be perpetually deficient. Insert Sagan's quote about advanced tech looking like magic here, I guess. I think we are getting there, though. We have some interesting thinkers in the world right now, and more surely to come with future generations. It just bothers me that this thread seems to be full of some really limited and unprovable ideas that are being presented as unassailable. So far our greatest explanation as to why we don't have any alien buddies is The Great Filter, and that's a about as structurally sound as wet tissue. Important to remember that we have a long, long way to go and it would be my hope that we achieve the ability to think like something other than ourselves.