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How do we know anything is real…?

Descartes brings up the question of dreams and reality: how do we know what is truly real?

Do we even know anything?

What if what we perceive as “reality” is simply a dream–and when we supposedly “wake up” from our dreams, we simply wake up into another dream? Inception???

Elon Musk believes we live in a simulation. But I find it ironic that humanity also developed Sims 3. Is that video game just some sort of sick way of the universe designer mocking us?

What about universal power. Who is the designer of this world? Is it the religious orthodox approach of an omni-God? Or is God amoral? Or is he multiple designers? Or was the world simply constructed out of a mix of convenience, chance, and miracle?

I believe reality is real, insofar as we are able to interact with one another. While in a dream, we are unable to conceive the thoughts of other people, nevertheless interact with them. In reality, we are. The fact that I am able to question my own reality, while also conveying that to other people who may have that exact same question, refutes the concept that I am living a dream. Or else we are all somehow living the same dream?

Life could be a simulation. But insofar as we are able to have free will, we are thus not in a simulation. To accept that life is a simulation would have to refute humanity’s ability to have freedom and free will. You can only choose one, and I choose the fact that I have free will.

And what about religion and deities?

I believe that the universe does not have an omnipotent-omniscient-omnibenevolent God in the traditional sense. I believe the designer of our universe is either amoral OR is benevolent but NOT omnipotent. If he were, however, omnipotent & omnibenevolent, then there are too many contradictions. Evil exists in our world, insofar as humanity knows. Thus, God is either not omnibenevolent, because he created evil, OR he is not omnipotent because he does not have the power to remove the evil in this world. And God cannot be comprehended as omniscient because only another omniscient being can say another is all-knowing–knowledge proceeds. I suppose the real question here is how does religion play into all of this, and whether or not this amoral God is worth worshipping?

The only way I know how to live life is as an agnostic in every sense of the word. I must remain skeptical about all of life’s questions, thus, I can remain curious and continue to seek knowledge in this finitely infinite universe.