.. only had time to skim the article, so I could be wrong, but it seems more of the same type of speculation, now dressed up in fancy philosophical and mathematical language.

Face it: we just don't know. We have only explored a vanishingly tiny corner of one single galaxy. We don't even have one data point yet (Mars). And yet at the Mars Society NSW 2002 convention I personally heard Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest (who were there flogging their latest book) say very clearly: "THERE IS DEFINITELY LIFE ON MARS"

That sort of talk is irresponsible and probably shows how little a PhD can mean, in terms of professional and personal integrity. It does make sense to speculate and search for life elsewhere, given the size of the universe, but our speculations are meaningless IMO, given that nature is always more bizarre than our imaginations. I would say Isaac Asimov's short story "The Talking Stone" has more to say about possible exobiologies than just about anything else I've read on the topic