A provocative new paper suggests consciousness may not be unique to Earth and could arise in alien life forms far stranger than we can imagine.

A new philosophical paper argues that consciousness may not be exclusive to life as we know it. According to Eric Schwitzgebel, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, there is little reason to think conscious experience depends specifically on flesh, blood, or the biology found on Earth.

Instead, Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober, a former UCR graduate student who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon, propose that consciousness could emerge in life forms built from very different materials. Imagine the five-limbed, rock-skinned alien featured in the recent hit movie Project Hail Mary. The authors argue that such a possibility should not be dismissed simply because it differs radically from life on Earth.