The Art of Existing

What does it mean to exist? Faced with the question, it can be easily dismissed with what we are doing now and how we embody this "thing" that is us. But what constitutes existence and how do we determine that we actually exist; to answer what is in our existence that we need to prove for us to live? Firstly, I think as humans, we could never determine our own existence. Do we exist or do we not, is simply not answerable with a "yes" or a "no" but rather a longing question that we need to examine from time to time.

I remember, when I was 15, I used to doubt the reality of those that surround me. From basic objects to people I interact with in my day to day meager mundane highschool teen life. How do I quantify they exist? From that question, it led me to a deep existential crisis trying to figure out what it means to exist and to understand the "realness" of my surroundings. 

Will we ever know?

One philosophical ideology, Solipsism, states that we only know of our own existence because we are conscious of it, but of others, it cannot be determined. Where does that put us then? On another realm of a crisis, trying to face the possibility that the people around us may just merely be projections of our brain, trying to soothe the aloneness without it. They say humans are social creatures after all. We seek the company of others, and society in itself is the basic foundation of civilization, made up of branches and interconnections by groups. But what if it is just our mind trying to create our own reality? And if so, why would our mind create its own reality?

There is a popular thought experiment called the "brain in a vat", in which it clearly states what it means to address, that we may all just be brains in a vat, connected to a supercomputer that generates certain emotions and actions that seems real. In a sense, it is a virtual reality to the extreme. The idea aims to understand the abstract, on things we do not have a tangible grasp. Knowledge, freedom, justice, truth, and consciousness are just some of the key ideas that philosophers or thinkers still have a great deal to ponder on about. 

But let's say the brain in a vat thought experiment is "real" - real in a sense that it is what constitutes our reality. Why would someone wire our brains in a vat and simulate a reality? I think, it may be, that our post-humans or the generations after us wanted to study humans. As we have. Trying to reconstruct images and voice speeches of cavemen such as the neanderthals. 

If humans are doing it now on a small and less technological scale, who can say that we are not just mere specimens for observation? 

Will we ever know? No.

So what does it mean to exist? If everything is hypothetically simulated, should we still go on and continue living when it seems so meaningless? I think the answer for that is a decision that we need to unravel. 

Does my existence have a purpose?

Note: Another outburst of energy led me to write this piece, trying to think about existence but as you can see, the thought still seems like an infant that I need to take care of, in order to be fully aware.

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