Humans have been spectacularly successful at developing technologies based on physics, Newtonian mechanics, E&M, quantum and relativistic high energy physics and so on. But is this the only way?

Could alternative tech be based on other sciences? I’m not talking about spooky stuff like magick, telepathy or telekinesis, but real sciences that we have studied but never developed in a really spectacular fashion, like acoustics, genetics, biochemistry, ecological manipulation of natural environments, or advanced directed evolution. Imagine a culture that doesn’t use chemical refineries to produce exotic materials, but breeds and bio-engineers micro- and macro-organisms (perhaps even themselves!) as chemical factories to make extremely complex molecules far beyond what we can do with our crude organic chemistry labs.

Its very difficult for us to imagine alien technologies that don’t look like more advanced versions of our own. What if they went in an entirely different direction?

For example, what kind of tech would we have developed if we were a marine species, with no early access to fire and electricity? Or what if we had been born on a perpetually cloudy planet, or a binary star world where there was no night, and never saw the stars. And what if we lived on a world with little silicon, and had no way of making glass (telescopes, microscopes, cameras, laboratory glassware, vehicle windows). Surely, we are laboring under similar handicaps and are probably not even aware of it.

Please respond, as a scientist, I am highly interested in your comments on this. I also invite anyone else listening to contribute as well. I spend a lot of time thinking about this, but I am too physical-sciences oriented to be able to pursue it very effectively.