Answers

I decided to share this answers as post in the blog because the article here is base of my first story, the first possible foreign civilization which we can meet it. It's not so far away from us, even we are living with them.
my friend Kourosh asked some questions, I think it's so useful to share the answers with you, in main blog.

1- Are instincts a form of intelligence, at least in primitive tasks?
yes they are, let me explain by detail.
suppose an agent must do a certain job in an uneasy environment, such as terrains. The first thing that robot must do is to continue it's mission, it's the essential point by which it could complete it's mission. For doing that it must not do thing's or actions that can harm itself, in other words it must protect its existence. So actions like getting back the hand from hot object which humans and animals do without thinking is a kind of intelligence. This kind is not depended on the object by itself, they are property of creature or maker of the object. I think it's a low level intelligence, but it's a kind of that. This is so far away from thinking, problem solving or such things. Instincts are a kind of intelligence too. They are essential for the object (human/animal) to continue it's living. You know there is no need to waist computational power in things that are so clear, the answers and actions designed and tested for known situations and problems, I call those solutions instincts. For example fear is a instinct, that protect us and do not let us to put ourselves in situations which are dangerous. ;)

2- Can intelligence be harmful to it's own being?
you know the humans are the creatures who can be suicide, also they are known as the most intelligent creatures on the Earth and known living world.
but there isn't any relation between to be intelligent and to be harmful to it's own being. May be you are mentioning harmful invention or global warming that are man made, so may be humans are smart enough to protect themselves form them. I duno, the coming future would prove this.

3- Does finding the signs of intelligence mean that there is a life out there?
no, they could be the robots or even an the structures of a lost foreign civilization in the universe.
but it would show that there was something. Do you remember the last civilization in the AI movie, they are bots, the remain and the continuation of human civilization when they don't exist any more.

4- Do you believe in soul?
it's so so hard to explain this.

intelligence - description by detail

At first glance an intelligent creature can learn, learning is a process in which the object acquires new skills, understandings, preferences, behaviors and knowledge. [learning] for the success of learning the object must have some kind of memory and it must use that memory. Knowledge is the thing that the owner of that suppose a certain phenomena could be described as the way he knows, it's about the describing things as Aristotle said.[knowladge] Inteligent creature have a certain way of comunication to share knowlage between themselfs, it's called language.[Language]
The hardest thing is problem solving, this is to get from current state to desired state, in the way that this states are parts of a hole issue called the problem. in some how it's more intengible for us to undrestand this, when a dog uses door handle to open it and gets inside the house.
Finally let's describe the logic. as you know logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and inference.
Each of this issues could be descused infinitly, but let's to start stories before the readers get borred.

Intelligence - an introduction to defining the intelligence

Defining intelligence it's not easy at all. May be every body thinks he/she is familiar with it. When you hear about intelligence what comes to your mind? for example when a web page or search engine suggests you a new feather or result, that may causes you wonder and you think how wise it is, wow omg! or when a software recognizes your voice and by the means of that you can do jobs just ordering by saying the commands, or when you see a dog solving a certain problem to get what it desired, for example get inside the house by opening the door by pooling the handle, or so on, Such things sounds smart things. But defining intelligence it's not as easy as this examples are. The phenomena such as memory, problem solving, originality, talk ( using a certain language to transmit a message), inference, abstract thinking, even thinking by itself, Creativity, Knowledge, learning, reasoning and planing are ale aspects of the intelligence or the wisdom. A creatures must be intelligence at first to be able make civilization, so the foreign life must be intelligent so it can create it's own civilization. How a living thing could be called intelligence? this is a primary question. So in next issues I'll try to explain the intelligence. Hope you would help me by your discussions and criticism.

Life

The life on Earth has existed for about 3.7 billion years. The primary types were molecules which can reproduce themselves. The main molecules such as RNA can reproduce itself, but the definition of life is not so simple.

Hearing the world life what is the first thing that you imagine? Human, a certain plant, a dog, bacteria, which one?

At a glance everybody would say that Life on the Earth is a common and usual phenomena but defining it is so hard. Living thing can do transformation by doing chemical reactions. It can reproduce, grow, adapt or communicate. Not all the species can do all of the above. In other words life can be define as a phenomena which is open and continues system able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or energy taken from environment and reject degraded form.[life] This last definition doesn't contain viruses, but viruses are formed by molecules similar to cells like bacteria and also they can reproduce themselves.

The early Earth had chemically reducing atmosphere, which combining with the lightning the first amino-acid molecules created. After that the more transformations had been take place and the more complex molecules such as organic polymers accrued, so it's the origin of life on the earth. This hypothesis is called Primordial soup theory. [Origin of life]

The main source of energy on the Earth is the sun. the only exception is the internal volcanic activities. Both of this could be the source of energy to produce early life on the earth.So life could be any where which there is a kind of energy source, suitable matters such as carbon and semi stable environment.

Life on The Earth is carbon-water based. life on the Earth is based on the water(H2O) and carbon. The carbon atoms have the characteristics to support life. I mean the organic molecules, Molecules such as DNA or lipids or proteins. Carbon is the element which can carry life. It's a fact because it's had been tested on the Earth for more than 3.7 billions years. [Periodic Table]

Solar system has an important role in creation and protection of life on the earth. But how? Do you remember Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9? it collided with Jupiter in 1994.[Comet] Jupiter like an gigantic vacuum cleaner attract such meteors and it doesn't let them to crash on internal planets in the solar system such as the Earth. So life on the Earth is protected from huge comets and meteors by the means of it's bigger sister Jupiter. But this is recent functionality what about the early periods?

The distance of our planet form it's sun is so suitable in which water can be in liquid shape. If the Earth was a little bit far away from sun the water would freeze or if it was a little bit closer the water would boil and escape from it's atmosphere. So we are at the right distance from our sun ;). Another good news, the size and mass of the Earth is so suitable, if it has less mass it couldn't keep it's atmosphere so there wouldn't be protecting layer and the life couldn't survive form disturbing rays such as UV. Also in this distance form sun the bigger planet can't stand on orbit. We are at right place with right size and at right time. Also Moon has it's own positive role in creation and survival of life on Earth.[solar System]

So let answer the original question, what could be living thing?

Creation of Life needs energy source, semi stable environment and life carrying chemical element. Foreign life can have similar or different bases from what we know as life on the Earth. The chemical elements which can carry life are bounded. It depends on the chemical characteristics of that element, for example carbon. We know all possible natural elements from periodic table. Also a semi stable place could be a moon or a planet, a rocky planet or even a gas made planet. In a system, in a galaxy.

So let's imagine about foreign shapes of life. It could be similar to our planet's life also it could be so different.

Preface

I'm gonna write stories about space explorations , meeting Aliens and finding foreign civilizations.
My inspiration source is my knowledge about the universe and movies and documentary films about such topics, also my readings about this that.
We are in space right now in a gigantic and amazing spaceship, yes it's our planet , The Earth , our home. We are traveling in universe with amazing speed at time and in space. We have only one lab and observatory which is same as our home, our planet, also we can only watch not to disturb it or do some experiments on it.
One day human civilization would meet other civilizations, it's a fact! I believe in this, we need our whole knowledge , technology , science and minds, at that time, we must be ready for that. So I'm doing my part, to imagine and think what would look like other Beings , outside our planet. What is life, should it look like to our known types or it could be something else? It's so fascinating for me, so I read and collect knowledge about this topic whatever I found it.

The Beggining

I'm gonna tell some stories about the time when human civilization would meet foreign civilizations form other planets.
All would be my thinks ,imaginations ,readings ,researches and my knowledge about science and astronomy.
one day our civilization would meet the other planets civilizations , it could be a big challenge for human kind also it could be a great opportunity for us to extend out since and knowledge limits.
Have fun