Life Explained

I think I was about 12 when I first asked myself the question "Am I really alive? Or am I dreaming that I'm alive?"

The question extends to a million other places, but the idea remains the same. What if reality isn't as it's explained to you? What if there are no other people, and you've just invented them all as it became convenient? What if the you you think you know is really just the you you want you to know?

The question is asked more elegantly in the movie "The Matrix" and had one of us decided to put pen to paper sooner, it would have made no difference at all. The question had been asked for ages, and touched on in just about all forms of media since the beginning of time. None of that matters, because it's such a fucking epiphany when you finally ask yourself. It's the definition of your existence at stake.

Do I exist?

It's a funny question, I think. In three words, you own the potential to completely negate any responsibility or consequence that your experiences have taught you. In three words, you have the potential to shed any frustration or misfortune in your existence.

Of course, the question was answered by a philosopher a few hundred years ago. Descartes wrote "Corgito, ergo sum", which if your Latin has fallen by the wayside, means simply "I think, therefore I am." Which, as Wikipedia is kind enough to regurgitate, was originally "Je pense donc je suis". That's french for the same, for the unintiated.

Yet, even if you go beyond him thousands of years, you'll find that Plato had explained conciousness in the simple "Knowledge of knowledge" idea, or you might find Aristotle's awareness text. That's fine, you can stay on that Wiki page.

Either way, the idea of explained existence has gone back much longer than your own suspected existence, and it's a fantastic reasoning (going back to "I think, therefore I am"), one I couldn't hope to disprove. Just the same, we'll turn the tables a second. What if you didn't exist?

What if everything you do is something I created? Or what if everything I do is something you've created? Or what if there is an omnipotent one among us who pulls all the strings either consciously or sub-consciously?

I suppose that could continue in any way. You could carry that line of questioning to the end of existence and never have any definite answer.

Which I suppose brings you to God.

To be completely honest with you, I never know where I sit on this subject. Some days, I just know, and in others I'm left in doubt. My favorite argument towards to existence of God is always simple. It's the Ockham's Razor of all explanations; "God did this." And yet, at the other end of the spectrum is Atheism. A clear case can be made here, too.

In that same, easy reasoning that God does exist, you have Chaos. The Big Bang theory. Evolution. Why do you exist? Because you do.

Anyone who tells you how improbable it is that you exist, that every facet of this life works within its tiny specification to make the world work the way it does, that every being has a blueprint and it can only be because God said it should be has no logical case.

You are here. The mosquitos are here. We have thunderstorms and the moon. Is it possible that we all exist because that's just the way it happened? If I had 2 eyes in the back of my head and a tail because that's the evolutionary course our species has taken would we be able to ask the same question. On the other end of Ockham's Razor is this, you exist because you do, not because a being decreed that you do.

The interesting thing about design is us. Humans. Regardless of how you view things, we are the key to this question. Are we the only species that debates the question of religion? Or existence? Maybe not.

But we seem to be the only species that has no place. We are unaccounted for. Without us, there is a cycle. Existence, then not. That's for every species, and not of equilibrium, because there is no permanent equilibrium, but a battle and an existence. Evolution, there it is again. But the difference between us and the other creatures is that we sacrifice to evolve. We destroy. And we question.

We live much longer than we once did, but is that not evolution? Even though the means are artificial, the idea that we are capable of building computers and machines or houses or roads or vehicles, is this not evolution? Applied Darwinism? A good portion of people would say that we've taken that out of the equation. That people now no longer succumb to allergies. That retardation or genetic disorder is no longer the determined end of the line. But what of reproduction?

It seems that we live in a world with two systems, science and religion. It seems that evolution and religion could co-exist. And yet, in most minds, they cannot. No one ever explains why, only that "God said it was" or "science demands it". Though there are few who could combine the ideals.

And then it might not matter at all.

Do I exist?

Fondly Remembered

One thing that every child born before 1989 looked forward to was getting stuff with the cereal box.

I think it may have been related to the difference in cool shit that we had, compared to the cool shit kids today have. It just doesn't seem to have the same appeal anymore, and today I just can't see why it ever did. Maybe I'm too old. Maybe it's because that shit they pack in with your cereal is pretty fucking disgusting.

Thankfully, they've moved the prizes outside of the bag.

Still, in my Frosted Flakes, among pictures of Harrison Ford and Shia LeBouf (whom I have an intolerance for, thought I don't know why), were the details of a value-add to the container of sugar-encrusted early-morning-fuel. The prize? An "Adventure Spoon", featuring a pillar (the handle) which prominently displays "Indiana Jones" in the trademark swoop, color-coded to indicate the hue your "Adventure Spoon" glows when the switch is turned on and the botton is actuated. In a separate bag was the actual spoon attachment, which was clear plastic and affixable to the top of the "pillar".

When I was about 6, I'd have gone apeshit with this thing. Of course, we used to eat cereal with forks to save the milk. My brother would confirm that.

But now, it seems the fervor behind cereal prizes is gone. It might be due to the fact that kids can bring DVD players, PSPs and Nintendo DSs to the table. Something that would have gotten me a knife stuck in my hand.

But at this point, now at 25, I look at this little plastic blessing and think "that's fucking disgusting." You wouldn't eat food with a toy soldier would you? (Jeremy can skip answering that question). At least plastic untensils give you the impression of sterility.

At least it lights up, I guess.