I like the images of the monkey at the beginning of the movie "The Dawn of Man" , where a protohuman discovers how a bone can be used a tool. Then watching him use it in a life/death struggle, and after winning, the protohuman tosses the bone in sheer ecstasy high into the air and the camera follows it, and then we are magically transported to an orbiting spaceship.

I have come to suspect that there are certain "hard stops" that many species do not evolve beyond, and that this makes the confluence of self-aware, intelligent life with tool-making physiologies, relatively rare ... and I wonder how many of those learn how to alter their biosphere and their evolutionary paths, and acquire destructive technology, long before they are mature enough to use these things wisely -- which itself would be another "hard stop" that would be difficult to get past without an extinction event.

We've known what to look for, and have been looking, for some time now ... it seems odd to me that we haven't detected any signs of other technological species yet. Or that they haven't detected and contacted us. I think this may well rule out at least a Star Trek-style universe just teeming with relatable intelligent life. Of course ... we've only been leaking radio signals for a century and the distances are vast, and we're still improving the technology to assess exoplanets for signs of life, or even compatibility with life as we know it ... so, I could be wrong.

That is about as good a statement of "supreme philosophy" as any presented. And in this random evolving universe, we are too separated from statistically possible other sustaining life planets to "cross-contaminate." While we are not "alone" here, we are likely to remain "lonely" for a very long time....