Question: Does
intelligent life exist on other planets?
Answer: In his
letter to the Sages of Montpelier, Rambam writes that there are three available
resources for examining any topic: prophecy, rational proofs and empirical
evidence. In our case, the Torah and the prophets wrote nothing definitive in
either direction. This is not surprising, for the Torah is not a science text
but a book guiding us in what is good and what is bad. In order to become aware
of reality, we possess scientific intellect, and that too is a divine gift.
There is even a blessing for when one sees a scientist. We have nothing against
the possibility of additional worlds, as Rabbi Chasdai Karshaks mentions at the
end of his book “Ohr Hashem,” yet we possess no decisive source in this regard.
Neither do the theoretical research sciences offer any definitive proofs. So that
leaves empirical evidence.
How remarkable it
is, then, that for more than fifty years people have been talking about
U.F.O.’s and aliens, and hundreds of thousands of people have testified that
they saw them. Even so, their declarations have no scientific worth. Why? For
in no museum on earth is there is any U.F.O. or any part of one that would
enable a scientist to examine it. This is one of the elements characterizing
the scientific approach, that one scientist cannot rely on the declaration of another.
Rather, every experiment must be examinable. That is, it must be possible for
any scientist on earth to repeat the experiment, and each is entitled to either
accept the first scientist’s assumptions or to prove their inaccuracy. Numerous
commissions have been established to examine the various testimonies of people,
and the phenomena have been explained in various ways, such as saying that the
"U.F.O.s" were actually airplanes, missiles, meteorological balloons,
kites, jets, helicopters, the moon viewed through fog, secret military devices,
astronomical phenomena, comets, the Northern Lights, low flying clouds,
automobiles on distant, cloud covered peaks, and so forth.
Science is
critical. It does not accept anything without proof, neither does it reject
anything out of hand. The matter has been investigated for fifty years, and we
have nothing to show for it. All the same, people continue to express interest
in this topic, and there continue to be hundreds and thousands of sightings.
Likewise, this literary genre remains current and continues to fascinate
people.
It is true that there are
bizarre phenomena that science has not succeeded in explaining, and that some
of the phenomena become explainable by means of the U.F.O.s. All the same, this
is not an acceptable approach. There will always be unexplicable phenomena, but
here those who believe in U.F.O.s grab a foothold where Science has no answers.
They dig into the crack in scientific explanations, expand it into wide depths
and introduce all sorts of conjecture into the hole. Yet that conjecture is
just as far from being provable as the original phenomenon.
I am therefore puzzled by
this stubbornness regarding faith in U.F.O.s. What is at work, however, is a
modern myth with a psychological dimension of profound anxiety. I shall
explain:
Why, in the imaginings of
witnesses and writers, do the aliens come here? With their advanced
technologies, what do they have to look for here? The closest star outside of our
solar system is 40,000 years' travel in the fastest spaceship. Why should they
go to all of this trouble? It must be -- some will explain -- that they are
looking for women here in order to renew their species which has reached
stagnation. Moreover, the alien is a very intelligent and hedonistic creature,
but he lacks emotions. He neither cries nor gets angry. Worse, he has no
morality and suffers from no dilemmas or inner turmoil. He is inhuman.
Therefore, the alien is sort of a kidnapper, seeking to give new life to his
species...
What does all of this
nonsense have to do with us?
What we really fear is
ourselves, the man of tomorrow, lest he be alien to us, steeped in technology
but lacking a human approach to social relations. People are in fear of science
and technology. It is true that science and technology, per se, are good
things, but they are liable to cause dehumanization and the end of mankind. It
will not be man’s fault but such dehumanization will be caused by the
deterioration of morality. You cannot talk to a computer.
Sometimes a computer eats
an important file and the user pleads: “Please computer! Return the file to
me!” But there is no one to talk to. The computer prints “error” and you really
feel “Arur,” cursed -- “cursed in your comings and cursed in your goings” (Devarim
28:19). People fear that man will turn himself into a computer, a sort of
technobarbarian, more dangerous than the most primitive, barbaric man, since
he will have in his hands powerful means of control which will serve his
cruelty. Having no conscience, He is liable to send an atomic bomb by the push
of a button. And all of this threatens society, namely, technology taking
control of life. Hundreds and maybe thousands of books have been written about
this in America, and all in vain. It is impossible to put a bridal on the
insane gallop of the technological monster. People are afraid of a new mutation
of the human race -- “computer-man,” lacking a conscience and armed with
powerful means -- the beast within man attached to high technology. That is the alien we fear.
Efficiency, talent and
excellence are taking control of man instead of morality and gentleness. A sort
of totalitarian technology is appearing, at the center of which is a machine
lacking human emotion.
Indeed, there is what to
fear. Yet let us not stop technology. Let us rather increase morality, justice,
the Torah and its light.
