I don't feel the slightest amount of humility about man's ability to pick apart the mysteries of the physical universe. Frankly, I'm continually amazed by it. Our capacity for learning, deduction, analysis, cognition, intuition, realization, imagination, etc., is actually pretty astonishing.
We've even gone a long way toward picking apart the mysteries of our own existence, though admittedly, that aspect of our learning lags behind our discoveries in the physical realm.
If we can somehow hold on long enough for discoveries in the mental/spiritual realm to enable us to overcome our brutish, animalistic tendencies, we will conquer the stars. I truly hope that we make it this time.
Yes, but it is conceivable that nature could have been constructed in such a way for it to have been impossible to extract any clues whatsoever about its history and origins. For example, we can tell the dates of rocks by the rate of radioactive decay. We can know a remote star’s chemical composition and other characteristics by its light signature, via spectroscopy.
I recall some prominent cosmologist many years ago on some science special saying: “We are the universe trying to understand itself”
Perhaps there is some underlying aspect of reality that wants us to figure it out and understand it.