Existence

I stumbled across solipsism yesterday which is kind of a terrifying idea. We could never know if anything outside our body is real at all. But what does “real” mean? It means something must exist, right? But what does existing mean? It occupies some space in the universe? But what does occupying space means? There are matters that are located at some point in the universe?

So first off, ourselves. You must exist right? You can’t doubt whether you exist or not. If you can doubt, you must exist. Cogito, ergo sum!. We are sure that we exist. But what about things other than “self”? Are we a separate thing from the other things in the universe, or are we one with the universe, with the ability of controlling a body? Will the universe continue to exist after we no longer able to perceive the world (a.k.a after you die)?

The world that we live in is perceived through senses. We have senses like vision, taste, smell, touch, hearing, and more–extending beyond just the five senses we usually think of, like sense of balance or sense of our body positions. With those senses, we can get an idea of how the world is like. But is everything we feel really what it’s like in the so-called reality? Let’s take a look at our vision as an example. We, humans, can normally see color as we know it–from violet to red in the light spectrum. But does the world actually look like that? Other creatures have visions that work differently, or not at all. They can see colors that we could never see or imagine. So, our perception of the world only exists in our mind. It’s just a mere shadow of the reality, described by Plato in his cave allegory.

We could never know whether reality is real at all. It could be that our consciousness is just simulated. We couldn’t even define “real” definitely. All we can do is believe. It’s terrifying. Maybe I am alone. Maybe the entire time, the people I helped never actually had consciousness and therefore everything I do is useless. But it could also be great. The embarrassing things I did wouldn’t be real and that’s nice. Nobody actually cares about the weird things I did.

And I guess that’s what makes life so fascinating. Maybe life is a mystery we’re not supposed to solve, because that’s what makes it beautiful.