Since a basic principle of matter (when placed within certain environments) is to evolve and adapt (increasing levels of complexity), then one would expect that on each planet then the basic elements would do the same thing.
One would expect life forms to evolve and eventually reach some form of self-awareness (consciousness). If environmental conditions were right, then this is fairly certain.
Given that they did not destroy themselves (as we have been trying to do since we organized into social groups), then this evolution over time - might lead to a level of intelligence we can only imagine.
If you are interested in just how far our current capability can evolve, you need to read the book Prodigy, about William James Sidis.
Sidis could read the New York Times at 18 months and had reportedly taught himself eight languages (Latin, Greek, French, Russian, German, Hebrew, Turkish, and Armenian) by age eight.
He was admitted to Harvard at age 11. At age 9 he lectured to 100 of the worlds top Physicist on the 4th dimension and most of them could not understand his explanation.
He eventually could speak over 40 languages. He had perfect total recall - he remembered everything he read and saw down to the smallest detail.
He could walk into a library, walk through the stacks, come outside and tell you where every book was located and the books on either side of it.
By the age of 12 he was more advanced in mathematics than anyone currently living.
This is what our brain is capable of, and although some of that capability make be structural, most of it is chemical. Once we crack the chemical code every human will have the opportunity to be brighter than most of the people living today.
If we can evolve this far in a few hundred thousand years, think what might happen on a planet far, far away where intelligent life may have been evolving for a billion years.
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