On faith
There's a one-liner somewhere on the internet - Some believe that man is the creation of God and some believe that God is the creation of man.
God is a result and a necessity of faith. Science is a necessity of life. Both go hand in hand. Humans cannot live without either.
I've always believed that Homo Sapiens is a species that needs some sort of faith. That faith might be anything. God. Science. Religion. World Dominance. Flat-Earth. The point is, our brains are cognitively advanced. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage.
Advantage - largest species on the planet.
Disadvantage - largest species on the planet.
Advantage - so many inventions that lead to vast comforts in everyday life.
Disadvantage - that big brain needs to be occupied with something or the other.
That's why solitary confinement is so damaging to the brain. In the absence of external input, the brain starts inventing stuff to keep itself busy. If this goes down the wrong path, it can be severely damaging. In line with the same concept, the brain/the species is constantly curious. To oversimplify, other species look at just the basic needs - food when hungry, and a safe place to rest when not hungry. Man, on the other hand, asks questions.
When questions go unanswered, the mind is troubled. Again, that is a double-edged sword. It has taken us to outer space and it has created psychopathic monsters. It is in pursuit of such questions that faith also comes into play. There will be a question and seemingly the answer will be unknown but achievable. For neutrality, let us consider the universe.
Who created it?
How big is it?
Where does it end?
These questions can be answered in so many different ways. One possibility is that there is an entity that is bigger than the universe which has created the universe. Another possibility is to say that we need to explore and find answers in a verifiable manner. These are the two most popular streams of answers. Each has its own set of believers.
Ultimately, these answers become explanations that satisfy the mind, at least temporarily. And that becomes faith. The questions change. The process does not.
Question->answer->belief->faith.
As such, what our species needs is faith. And the mind is tremendously complex. It does not come just with curiosity alone. It comes with an ego. When one set of beliefs questions the other, and when the mind cannot answer questions, the ego enters the picture to defend the mind. This results in a conflict between the two belief systems. This cycle will end only with the species. As long as the cognitive mind exists, there will always be a mentality of "us-versus-them".
But I digress. Science is interesting. It believes in what it can see and feel and understand. But that does not mean that it disbelieves in the existence of what it cannot see or does not understand. Therefore, I believe there are many things that science does not and cannot explain, at least for now. But it is not prudent to bunch all of those unexplained, undiscovered, unknown unknowns into a single entity for convenience. In other words, there is some higher being, not up in the sky, but inside our own minds and hearts. It can be called anything. It is convenient to call this power as God or something similar for ease of explanation. But it is not supreme. It is not all-powerful. It is not all-encompassing. It is one of the many lights that shine the path in our quest for knowledge. Like science.
In biological evolution, we make a difference between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. It is partly because of metacognition. Neanderthals could live only in the moment. We think and can explore art, science, philosophy, literature and even religion.
It is impossible for a spider to imagine the concept of a dog. It is impossible for a dog to project itself into the mind of a small human infant. It is impossible for a chimpanzee to even grasp some of the concepts we often think about—the meaning of life, the vastness of the cosmos. As Dr Derek Tracy said: “A goldfish doesn’t know it’s in a bowl. A dog cannot know that other organisms can think differently to it.” There is a hard, impassable line between each order of mentalisation.
If we accept the fact that every time there’s a step up, lower orders can’t conceptualise it, then we need to consider the logical conclusion: if an entity with a sixth or higher order of mentalisation was trying to communicate with us, we would not be able to understand it. This is very different from the traditional worry of a language barrier as you see in the (amazing) movie Arrival—this would mean the inherent, unchangeable inability to even become aware a higher-order entity is trying to make contact.
Therefore, if there are aliens, and if they are of a higher level of cognition than us, and if they are trying to contact us, we will never know.
God cannot exist. God cannot "not exist" either. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Same way. God and science; both are needed. God and God-like explanations are for the heart. Science is for the mind. Both are needed. Not everything is science. Not everything is religious either.
But everything is about faith.