Yes, you guessed right, I am talking about what is considered to be the greatest science fiction story of all time by none other than the godlike Isaac Asimov. I recently got a chance to read it and surely it rocks. It is a story of a different world, a planet surrounded by 6 stars. Now this is not as absurd as it may seem, there are many more binary and ternary star systems than there are single stars. So on this particular world, sentient life evolves without a concept of night or a star filled night sky. But there is a catch, there is another planet in orbit which is not visible because of the stars, but it causes a total eclipse every 2500 yrs. The population at large fails to cope with this unimagined situation (of night), with the sense of claustrophobia taking over, and nearly destroys the civilization (and the cycle repeats..).
Apart from demonstrating the genius of Asimov's imagination, the story also shows how different can be a different level of consciousness and how much limited we can be in just speculating about it. Natural Selection shapes the life in a particular habitat and as far as I understand, it may have certain chaotic points where small changes in external conditions can change the system in a big way. So the question arises, do our current efforts for Search of Extraterrestrial life make sense? Can we find a common ground on basis of which two fundamentally different civilizations can communicate? Maths is often touted as this common ground, but an intriguing idea I came across in another science fiction story (I forgot the name and the author) is to use Games as the common ground for communication, as however advanced a civilization, it will have a need of recreation.
Or maybe, Life is not such a divergent system after all. Certain chemical elements might be the basis of 'All' Life, and Life, even if started with different initial conditions may ultimately converge according to some deep law. Only time will tell, and until that time comes, keep wondering..
