This is exactly how the spiritualists sounded in their day. They had facially plausible theories of the phenomena they claimed to observe with no actual evidence described in ways that fit in with the gaps in understanding of the moment.

I too consume a lot of science fiction, but it's important to remember that it's just writers making shit up. Perhaps FTL is possible. Perhaps angel are real. Both are things people want to believe in, and both have facially plausible literary explanations, but they have equally good scientific evidence at the moment.

The fact that there is no way to know means that at most we should say "no idea". It is also the least knowledge we should pretend to have on the subject.

Well, we do have some idea.

Take gods. Even most theists don't believe in most gods. An atheist, as the saying goes, is just a person who disbelieves in one more god than average.

In theory, everybody has to admit that all gods are possible. Does Zeus exist? No idea. Does Bast exist? No idea. Does Yahweh exist? No idea. It's not like we can prove that they aren't out there somewhere.

But what we do know is that a lot humans have made up a lot of gods. We know that people make up and believe in all sorts of things with no evidence at all. So if something fits the same pattern, then we actually have reasonable evidence that it's just another one of those things.

So in a world of people who will take "no idea" as permission to rant more about their theory of chemtrails or ZOG or how the true Messiah lives in a heavily fortified compound outside of Waco, TX, I think an honest and accurate "no idea" isn't enough. Would that it were.

Did you happen to notice the phrases “it’s conceivable” and “perhaps” in my reply? I’m not making any categorical assertions. I think people who make categorical assertions in the negative regarding other life in the universe and its potential capabilities are engaging in scientism.

Lots of things are conceivable. Gods are conceivable, as are angels and demons. It's conceivable that you are the only sentient being in existence besides me and that I am a vast superintelligence controlling everything you see and hear, posting little reminders of the truth like this just to fuck with you.

However, I doubt you're going to spend much time on that, and I'm not going to spend much time on other things that are merely conceivable.