Philosophy Articles #1-Existence

What exists? What is existence?

These questions of existence is one of the most fundamental in all of philosophy, because it forms the basis for most, if not all other philosophical thought. Other branches of philosophy often rely on the assumption that there is indeed something that exists in order to have something to philosophize about. The formal name for this branch of philosophy is called ontology, and it deals with the concepts involving how things exist. 

Consider this: in the revolutionary 1999 movie The Matrix, the main character Neo discovers that the existence and reality he “lived in” was nothing more than an illusion; everything he lived in was merely a simulation created by superintelligent computers for their own purposes. 

Thus, in dealing with these questions of existence, a significant problem arises almost immediately--we can’t really know what exists and what doesn’t exist. If everything was just an illusion or a simulation, how would we know that the existence we think we know about is real? In other words, how do we know that we aren’t just living in a Matrix-style illusion? 

So, we aren’t able to know for certain that we do indeed exist and that what appears to be existence is really existence. But it is possible that we either know with enough certainty that we do exist, we can assume that we exist, or a combination of both.

Firstly, things appear to exist to us, and it seems that we can interact with the various things in the world. Therefore, it is reasonable that we can assume that there must be some type of existence associated with all of our experiences. Even if we were being deceived and everything we knew was not the actual reality, it would be good enough for us. We don’t have to worry about the full and total truth about reality the same way those characters from The Matrix have to. Until there’s some type of highly convincing argument that we exist in a simulation, The Matrix remains a possibility--but ONLY a possibility. It is equally, if not more likely, that it is not indeed reality and that our existence is the real existence.

Furthermore, the world and existence as we know it seems to follow certain rules, certain patterns, certain laws. Even if we didn’t actually exist, we can assume that we do exist as thinking, sentient beings. Being the thinking, sentient beings we are as humans, we want to understand. We want to know. So we’ve devised the systems of philosophy and science to assist us in our understanding of existence and the fundamental nature of being. If you think about the very word “being” as it is used to describe us, there is an implied assumption that we do exist nested in it.