Elephants in and of themselves are not good candidates for advanced technological civilization, but I suppose something could arise on another planet elephantlike in its form. But it would have to change significantly.
You're really,
really not getting it.
Humans, elephants, dolphins, etc. aren't intelligent, tool-using species because of their body shape. That form of intelligence just
happened to be one that came across to one of their ancestors and flourished as time went on. It could have been an emu, a zebra, a jellyfish, or those really weird creatures living in the deep abyss of our oceans.
How does what I said, "an environment like ours," translate somehow to mean "a salt water aquatic habitat miles beneath the ocean"? I'm talking about terrestrial animals. And, even so, cnidarians aren't going to evolve intelligence anytime soon inasmuch as
they don't even have brains.
Humans aren't intuitive to our environment.
Yet we mastered the Earth while other apes and elephants face ecological catastrophe. Why? Because we have the ability to understand and produce symbolic tools like language and to create and control physical tools like internal combustion engines. Both are
absolutely integral to a civilization. Without fine control over symbolic tools, particularly writing, knowledge is totally individualized and cooperation ranges from difficult to impossible. Without fine control over physical tools we are left with little more than our own strength to face the dangers of the natural world.
We only showed up a few thousand years ago. Considering the span of life and evolution on this planet, that's a bat of the eyelash.
Homo sapiens is two hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand years old. The earliest hominids date back thirteen million years.
ANY of those creatures could have developed sophisticated intelligence and communication skills and become the planet's dominant, technology-using lifeform. We just happened to luck into that role.
Which ones? The ones that don't have central nervous systems, or the ones that have flippers with which to manipulate their environment?
How about a type of snake? A godlike intelligence in a boa constrictor's body? Does
it become a dominant, technology-using lifeform?
Evolution isn't directed. In the individual case, it's random. But in the aggregrate, through sheer numbers evolution tends to produce results that are rather excellently adapted to survive in their environment. Going back to elephants, if a creature from the order proboscidea was the dominant life form on Earth--and the term would be used rather loosely--it would only be because humans never arose. It would be totally unable to rebuild its environment as humans have done.
And considering the pathetically slim chances humans had of evolving on this planet, why in God's name would you or anyone else assume all intelligent life in the universe would look exactly like us, have exactly the same culture as us (which is almost exclusively American/British for crying out loud; how absurd is that in REALITY let alone universal sci-fi!).
It's patently insane to assume that any other life -- intelligent or not -- in the universe would look even remotely like us, let alone exactly like us.
My argument is certainly not that aliens would look exactly human. But there would likely be some pretty important commonalities, besides the cognitive abilities, given roughly the same type of planet:
1)DNA basis for its genetic coding. DNA outcompeted other self-replicators on Earth to virtual extinction, there is no reason to believe it would not do so on an alien planet.
2)Oxygen-breathing and water based biochemistry. The reasons for these are obvious.
3)Child-rearing instinct with perhaps a slight prediliction toward placental mammalianism or similar function. There's a reason why invisible, language-using, manipulator-granted cuttlefish don't take over the surface world like Namor the Submariner. They don't give think of the children.
4)Social instincts, including empathy. See above.
5)Hands or similar fine manipulator appendages. Not much progress without these, regardless of intelligence. Elephants could be
smarter than humans, but would still be stuck in zoos at our sufferance, without hands.
6)Similar but not identical range of senses. Alien life will not be able to see gamma rays or smell dark matter. At least two eyes for depth perception. I'll grant that 360 degree vision is hardly unlikely, however, and perhaps more likely.
7)A visual cortex that forms a three-dimensional world-map. This is obvious, but not universal among life on Earth, so I figured I'd mention it. With the above, this means that alien life would evolve to relate to the universe in
basically the same way.
8)A method of producing sounds or sights that can form the basis of a language. The cuttlefish do have this, with their ability to change colors. This is a completely plausible method for alien communication and an oral language is not necessary, although it is far, far,
far likelier for a life form that lives in a medium of air with a great many line-of-sight obstructions like a terrestrial environment would presumably be.
8)Hairlessness and sweat glands are likely, for reasons outlined in previous posts. Inability to regulate body temperature strikes me as somewhat unlikely.
9)A compact size. An advanced technological society would outstrip the resources of an Earth-like planet rapidly with life forms significantly larger than ourselves. Elephants eat iirc about 70kg of food a day (with more efficienct digestive systems they could do with less, more like 35kg). You think Americans are bad? Imagine the gasoline needed to transport 300 million elephants on their daily commutes. This sounds facetious, but underlying that is a good evolutionary reason to become smaller, as the smaller a life form is, assuming, as is the case with humans, that size is not related to strength viz. potential predators or prey, the less it needs to take from its environment and the more likely it is to survive. Yes, humans are bigger than they used to be but that's nutritional, not genetic.
10)Finally, related to the above, the alien will definitely have a mouth and an anus. I defy you to argue otherwise.
Now, this leaves a lot of ground open. It could have brightly colored plumage. It may--I reluctantly accept--might not be bipedal. But it will be pretty relatable.
.
