There is an infinite number of unanswered questions out there. One of the most important ones: Our Existence.
Almost everyone has an existential crisis at one point in their lives or another. Where we question the very core of our being, the purpose of our existence, and the meaning of our lives. Some people are more capable of handling that situation than others. Some of us have spent years in pursuit of trying to find an answer, and some of us let these abstract ideas slide by as being non-practical.
There are a lot of explanations out there for answering this question and none of them is superior to the others, as all of these explanations are based on assumptions, beliefs, and faiths. Let’s take the most dominant ideologies, for instance:
- Polytheistic religions, such as Hinduism: According to the Brahma-Samhita, the universe is created by the God of Creation, Brahma, for the souls which do not stay with him in the spirit world;
- Monotheistic religions: According to the Quran in Islam and the book of Genesis, the creationism standard for Judaism and Christianity, the One true God (Allah, Elohim, God, Yahweh) created the universe for humankind;
- Atheism: According to the Big Bang Theory, the universe came into being due to some unknown factors caused by the expansion of a singularity into the universe we currently know.
One must, in order to answer these questions, realize the importance of their existence. I would love to paraphrase a paragraph from Steven Hawking’s book, a Brief History of Time, which raises a question to the tune of the following:
Is the question, "What is the Universe?" so profound, that the question itself gives rise to a whole universe and then us, to have asked that question; for without the universe the question wouldn't exist, and without someone to ask the question, the existence of the universe wouldn't matter anyway.
So in essence, if we did not exist, then the existence of the universe was moot (from our perspective, because we would have none), and if the universe wouldn’t have existed then our existence wouldn’t have mattered. So, we ARE essential to the existence of anything (from our perspective).
If we take the more scientific route then our existence is nothing more than the laws of natural sciences physically manifesting to increase entropy throughout the universe. Just like a singularity exploding to become a universe, Quarks form Hadrons which become Nuclei of Atoms that further combine into Molecules of Elements and Compounds until they manifest as the macroscopic world around us.
As we talk about our existence like a conscious being, we do not speak as such about non-living things, even though we have both emerged from the same atoms, just different compositions and a different evolutionary tree. Then what makes our existence so superior to anything else? maybe there is no such thing as consciousness and maybe we are even asking the wrong questions. What’s important is to keep asking these questions because as long as you question your own existence, you’re playing a major part in uncovering the secrets of the universe.
We are superior to a rock because even if a rock may have some form of consciousness and a higher intellect than us, there is no evidence whatsoever that it has any such traits. That is why it’s classified as a non-living thing without a conscious (metaphorically speaking).
Self-awareness, is what makes us special, even if we are nothing but biological machines in the universe’s overall scheme to increase entropy. Even if we are just puppets of our own evolutionary instincts and Fixed Action Patterns. Even if our free will is nothing but a facade and everything is pre-determined, the mere fact that we can question our own existence, is proof enough for us, that we exist.
