During one of my recent contemporary art history courses I have come to the realization that people think too much and dumb themselves as a result. Damn 1960s and their damn minimalists and land artists- worst of all, conceptualists (which I all love with my whole heart, full disclosure). There is no way that the question ''what is art?'' puts you in a difficult position. The answer is so simple that it's stupid. Find that out yourself, by the way. I'll tell you only if you manage to find my email and contact me privately, because you'd deserve it for the effort.
So, I decided to task myself with the hardest of missions: I'm going to answer these questions for the rest of humanity. You may address me as your God after this, and I shall be glad to take onto such humble role. Albeit hesitant at first, I'll make sure to be wise and righteous.
As for the source, I googled "top questions about existence" and the engine fed me these.
''From sources across the web'', it says. I don't trust you, little crawler, I never did, but I like the bare minimum transparency you're displaying here, regarding your questionableness.
P.s. For the purpose of this article, I removed all singular pronouns such as ''your'' or ''my'', because they created confusion, in my opinion. I cannot answer the question that reads ''Who am I?'', because who the hell is asking that? Me? You? I replaced them with our/us/ours. Of course, those merely refer to you, as a human collective. I am not part of this ''us'', as I already said, I might as well be God.
P.p.s. You should forget all you know about philosophy, everything you studied until now. If you're a philosophy-centered major, I am deeply sorry. I'm saying this merely because I am as aware of the history of philosophers and their words as a fruit fly would be. Alas, the fruit fly is allowed to ponder. I may reference disproven theories (how can they be disproven? You have no proof before reality), I may reference overly-discussed ones. Again, I am blissfully unaware. Such is the all-knowing God.
I have found this picture of Kanye West posing with Murakami Takashi.
Kanye looks like he isn't real, right? I can't be the only one seeing that. He looks like a modded The Sims 3 character, he's badly rendered. He has different lighting than the rest of the picture- the rest of reality, for that matter. What's up with him looking like wax? He has generic features. Is he real in that? Why is Murakami looking normal? Maybe I'm commenting on a genuine wax figure.
That is one question I cannot answer, be aware.
Now, let's proceed.
1) Does our life have a meaning?
We start off a bit strong with this one. I would've saved this for last, personally, but I'm also glad we can set the tone right away.
Meaning exists because our stupid little brains decided to give meaning to things. All the Representations' fault- blame it on art, shapes, and secondly, blame it on words, speech.
This old fucker from Indonesia right here on the right is absolutely overflowing with meaning. This precedes art-as-representation as we know it now of course, since prehistoric humans could not care less about creating the illusion of their own reality, mirrored on a cave wall. Still, pig existed in real life, someone saw it, and decided to represent its essentials- didn't have to look like it, it had to Be it in all its elements (take it from those cubists guys, they digested the concept for all westerners). This pig had a meaning and a function, because someone created it, and someone gave it a meaning.
Then came words, I guess. The pig had to be a pig. What's the meaning of the word pig? [Picture it as OLD words. I don't speak old]. What's the meaning of the word life? When people came up with a couple of sounds to describe being Here and Not Dead, shit got insane. Those poor things came up with a sound for something they couldn't put their finger on. Why does it matter? Should've shut up in the first place.
The meaning of life is that there's no meaning, and there's no life. If you were able to make up the concept of life, might as well make up a meaning, too; without that ability or decision, there is no meaning. In the end, I strictly believe that's the answer: there is no meaning because no artist created us like that Indonesian pig was created. But if you hate yourself to an extent, you can come up with anything, and pretend to be the artist that created yourself. Sometimes, that might even be the case.
Another thing I'd like to mention: I'm gonna drop the whole "we just made that shit up"-centered argument afer this one. Because it could be applied to perhaps most of questions. If you liked it, go ahead and apply it to them. I grew bored of it.
2) Is there a God?
Were you expecting me to declare myself as such? I still have to answer all the other questions, and I find it a tad too early. Later, perhaps.
Conceptions of God in the majority of religions include a powerful, supernatural being, or the deification of an entity/category; the "Ultimate" and similar, like The Being or something; an Absolute Spirit in terms of being its Own, Complete, Perfect absolute.
I think the only knowledge that comes close to that definition is the Universe- at the same time, a human being made up those categories. We could say the Universe made them up. Not only we are part of the Universe, but we are made of the same thing. I think the Universe manifested itself in its self consciousness by creating consciousnesses, but that is for later.
The Universe has no borders and is all borders, it IS and HAS everyhing that exists at the same time, and is also made up of void, (which exists anyways, nothing doesn't exist). It created itself, it makes things die because it also holds and keeps up the concept of time in its movements. If that isn't God, I don't know what is.
A counterargument that came to mind would be that what isn't the Universe might be God. I say this, because we don't what the hell it is, because it isn't in the first place, and that sounds like perfection layering upon itself. Or, maybe it's both the Universe and what lies Beyond it, and I should give it a name or something. I would like to keep my mind open on this one, and I shall update this page if an ephiphany presents itself at some point.
P.s. if the magnifying glass inside the picture isn't working, try refreshing. That javascript beat me to death, I am powerless before such technology.
3) Consciousness
That is not even a question. What am I supposed to say?
I know it should mean "what is consciousness?" or something along those lines, but out of principle, I will pretend not to know. You were supposed to be more clear, and I hate it when people task me with the hard work of guessing.
I will simply say something about consciousness.
As I stated in my previous point I believe that the Universe decided, at some point, to manifest its self awareness by creating conscious beings, therefore becoming conscious itself. Of course, I say that it "decided", but it couldn't have done that, being consciousless.
I suppose, much like its creation and the transformations inside of it, it just happened because it's ruled by chaos, and when it comes to chaos, anything is bound to happen (or not) at some point.
This logic implies that the Universe IS conscious in its entireness, both as a quality and as an identity. Humans are conscious because the Universe is, and becuase humans are the Universe. (That, or- since the Universe is All and Nothing, one could argue it was both conscious and unconscius before being self aware of said consciusness).
I believe we could possibly connect our consciousnesses, since both our physical and energy-based forms (and everything in between and beyond, such as thoughts and desires) are inside, and therefore made of the Universe. It's not necessarily a good thing, if you think of the Reddit hivemind.
Except you'd have no way of having a personal opinion on it, you would not feel it, you would Be the hivemind.
That, to me, sounds incredibly peaceful.
4) What is death?
-Death is when people are killed S. Emiya
Mind you, this doesn't ask what lies beyond death. So, I shall keep it simpler than I hoped for.
Death is the end of life. What do you want me to say?
When a living being is born, it's like it's being launched at full speed into the Universe, and that energy from the initial push has to slow down, and eventually come to an halt.
Although the concept of someone being alive is still being debated by scientists, we can say that - more or less- living beings have their own genome ( this doesn't make them alive, bear with me); or according to NASA, are a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. To define what is alive currently, there's the good old list of life: it needs to move, respond to external stimuli, excrete and feed, reproduce and grow, respire. This is just a list of potentials that the being might achieve, or lose doting its time on Earth, or during the course of generations.
Whatever.
When All of those functions cease, the thing is dead.
As for death with living beings with a functioning brain+consciousness package, once that big lump of consciousness ceases to create energy, death has arrived. Which isn't in any way different from the death of other organisms, but definitely more concrete and visible.
I admit, I have feared - and still do, at times- that once I am declared dead by specialized humans, I might still be conscious. My conscius is energy, and nothing can be destroyed in this Universe, so it has to go somewhere, I suppose. Alas, that is for another time.
No one else is existing you other than you. Other existences are not yours to exist, and so is the other way around. You being the sole owner and participant of Your existence automatically makes it so you are in complete control of its purpose.
You want to give it a purpose? Go ahead, pick one, or make your purpose the search for one. You can decide whether to ask yourself that question in the first place or not, eradicating the whole search for a purpose.
This entire supposition assumes that there is no purpose in the first place, of course. Had there been A Purpose I would've known, and there would only be one, pre-decided. But, there isn't anything of the sort: someone would have to set that. What is a purpose, if not the skeleton of a task? None tasked us to exist, not even the Universe (which would mean, not even ourselves). Which is why I believe we are free to pick a purpose, if we so desire, and such purpose shall be linked to our own current living experience, rather than existence (which I believe implies the constant and unkillable energy present in our Universe that moves from life to life as the first one dies).
If you're kinda hardcore, you can even make someone else pick a purpose for you, and dedicate your life to it (two purposes with one stone). Such is post-capitalism.
6) What makes human life more valuable?
A few days has passed since my last wisdom, and I am feeling particularly hyped.
I hate this question so much. Who thought of this one? You did? I think I can forgive you, but it will take a while for me to actually like you.
Human life is NOT more valuable- I'm assuming, compared to other lives. If you, reader, are a human being and believe that your life has more value than an animal one (we will get to other lives in a second), you haven't lived long enough to understand the basics of your self worth.
Of course you're valuable, you're special and important to yourself and those who love you (at least you should be, and perhaps even deserve it) and all that. You're not valuable because you're human, that's just what you and your loved ones think. Life doesn't have a value to it, you can't own it, you can't sell it.
I'm not going to play dumb. I know humanism and other views and religions regarding anthropocentrism are safely backed up by humans' belief that self-awareness and the ability to create with both mind and hands is the pinnacle of worth. I know that most religions especially put a wide gap between humans and non-humans. Again, I'm not here to criticize or talk about existing religions or philosophies, I am merely taking that into account, and letting you know I am aware where this question stems from, and that I disagree with it.
I believe the only real gap is between animals and plants, at most, given one's (NOT self-)awareness and natural ability to move. I wish it wasn't, but there we are. I am an animal above plants, as much as I'd like to lower my status for the sake of equilibrium.
Humans are an animal species, so if you're an omnivore or a carnivore, stay respectful while you respect your body's needs.
Ok no, I get it. This one goes hard, we're finally onto something. To some, this can be confusing at first: let it be clear, we're not jumping into the topic of the afterlife. Not from my understanding, at least. This "something more" should be read, in my opinion, like the "something more" that there's to the universe- something beyond our senses, something we don't know we don't know.
This question is more of a matter of belief rather than knowledge, and I apologize for that. The image I offered explains it plainly: I reside in the life box, much like everything and everyone that is able to communicate inside of it. Communication is in fact our key word: life can communicate, the more-to-life cannot. I'm not only talking about whether it's whithin themselves (life can communicate with life, more-to-life cannot communicate with more-to-life), but also among each other (life cannot communicate with more-to-life and vice versa); hence why I'm by definition unable to know about this more-to-life. Even if it existed, it won't talk to me.
I believe that the more-to-life is real (or rather real and unreal, or non-living within itself, not doing something and doing something), because it's simply implied by the existence of life. Of course life isn't the only thing to exist, of course there's more to life. Our knowledge on it is just limited, and will forever be, for we aren't allowed to think of it, to picture it: this would bring it to life. I urge you to leave it alone, for your own sake.
P.s. You might notice my notion of "life" can be easily replaced with "reality" in this context. I believe that whatever communicates with life in any way, whether it's directly or not, is life itself, an experience of it, which includes every surrounding, every reality. Life (rather my definition of it) is reality.
8) What is our identity?
Don't tell the higher ups. I was supposed to know everything -Prismo at some point, probably.
I have a personality disorder, do your own homework. See the next point, I guess it's a decent substitute. Don't tell the higher ups. I was supposed to know everything.
9) Who are we?
I hate this question, it's so vague. We are not a single thing, besides being human (whenever this applies). If you need an answer so bad and are a slave to labels, then use your own name. That tends to sum up a person without saying anything about them, like a book title, which is the best match to the question. Otherwise you don't need to know something that senseless and practically non existent.
Not to get all Steven Universe-y here, but if I really, reeeally had to talk about this in more depth, I'd say we are what we experience. We are mind sponges, sometimes body sponges, a combination of mind and body that serve as a base for our aesthetic experiences built upon it.
This question is not even real.
10) Why are we here?
There is no bigger reason, why do you need a reason? You started asking these questions about the whys and the hows around the age of 6, and I hope that by now you've realized that they stemmed from mere curiosity and nothing else. Not for survival, nor basic necessities- this "why" is devoid of any question and can only help itself.
Maybe you still have to learn about the birds and the bees. A term that I hate. All infants should be made aware of human anatomy and functions, the same way they are made aware of numbers and colors and ''look at that doggie!''.
In other words, you are here because of that. A multitude of coincidences happened. Otherwise, someone else would've been here instead of you, or no one at all. I suggest you don't think about it too hard, unless you believe in the multiverse theory, which can be a little comforting when it comes to infinite possibilities suddenly being presented to your finite brain.
Is your curiosity sated?
11) Are we all equal?
Months have passed since my latest update. Perhaps I have thought too hard. This question, however, requires little to no thinking, and I am more than happy to make such a comeback.
Equal to what? To each other? We are not a quantity, we do not have value, we are all equal and unequal depending on who's being asked.
In the eyes of the law? We aren't equal (hence "depending on who's being asked"). Laws and regulations should be based on equity anyway, rather than equality- adapting to each individual and their necessities rather than giving everyone the same tool and calling it a day. You probably saw that comic on Google+ back in the day, about a fish deemed stupid because he couldn't climb a tree like the teacher asked all the animals to. Re-drawn and re-traced into oblivion. That stuff. I dig that.
So yeah, from that point of view, the one regarding concrete abilities, we aren't equal, which is extremely cool. And because of that, we should treat each other with the fittest equity possible, though those in charge are the ones who ultimately hold that power, and I doubt they'd want just anyone climbing up their tree. I also doubt they'd be willing to admit that trees aren't that important, that they aren't the end goal, that the dirt or the fishbowl are just as concrete as a tree. They'd rather talk about how unjust it is that some fishes cannot climb trees.
We are all born by the same energy, we are all mind and meat, and there is nothing more humbling than that. It is a condition without value, without quality, without quantity.
On an extremely side note, I have found that these two fishes can in fact climb trees. A Mudskipper and a Climbing Perch.
Mudskippers, looking like my stegosaurus art from 3rd grade.
Climbing Perch. Not really a climber. Hilarious YouTube thumbnail, though.
12) Can we really know everything?
Allow me to tackle this one in a substance induced haze.
What is everything to you? If you take "everything" as both the [life] box and the [beyond life] box, then: no. Have you been paying attention? If you know it, it is in the [life] box.
Regarding the [life]: I think some of us can know more things than others, but not everything. Everything is a lot of things, even if you are "gifted" and have that sort of super photographic memory or something.
Math hours: The source is from 2010 and I assume it takes a healthy, average brain into consideration, but our brain should be able to hold 2.5 petabytes of memory in total. Again, assuming this includes sensory, short-term, long-term memories (then, explicit and implicit and everything included by those), that would be 2500 terabyte, or 2'500'000 Gb. Wow! Let's say that the study is off, let's double it- no, quadruple it-- no, no, decuple it. Let's say that the study was off by A LOT, ten times its original numbers, and our brains can store 25 petabytes of memory. The amount of Big Data was estimated to be around 6800 Exabytes in 2020- barely a collection you'd be able to count, but it gives you an idea. 6800 Exabytes are 6'963'200 Petabytes. Not 25.
There is simply not enough space in our physically limited brains to know everything, and by everything I mean everything. Like how many grains of sand there are at the bottom of the Mariana's Trench (if any), the color gradient for each one of them, same thing with how many snowflakes there have ever been ever (because [life] includes past, present, and future in its everything) and how many combinations of shapes each snowflake has, and precisely how big every measurement is for each shape of each snowflake. Get it? And this is just a couple of things.
You can't know everything, but you can know most things about what you want to know. I know a lot of things about art history and fauna and coins. That is quite satisfying, and it is everything to me.
Yes, I am talkative when tipsy. But I'm a sleepy drunk, and this is your saving grace.
13) How can we be happy?
I should start by saying that this answer doesn't necessarily apply to individuals whose mental illness(es) prevent them from achieving a satisfactory sense of happiness. It's applicable, but for that specific issue, more concrete solutions exist. There's a way out. With that out of the way:
Happiness is achievable in many ways, which lead to even more combinations. I felt hesitant about answering this question at first, because I'm reluctant about giving in to one's addiciton. We're plagued by an addiciton epidemic, and we desire more happiness than we can possibly process. We become unhappy when those impossible demands are unmet. Are we to blame?We were born to bare one point of view, yet we are forced to endure so many, and we are left with no choice but to live through a migraine inducing kaleidoscope.
You know what you're seeing is real, but it's not really there, is it? You can consume endless amounts of media (you don't have a choice, do you?), and it won't affect you, will it? Like a dead bug, only the inside is rotting, while the outside is looking as unchanged as ever.
Looking at pictures of kittens with this specific facial structure also helps. They look so dumb.
The problem is that you are addicted to happiness, but have no way of knowing it, knowing why you need it so bad in the first place.
Why do you value happiness above other emotions?
I tried eating pizza evey day for a week, and I couldn't even lay my eyes upon one of my favorite meals for months after that. Pizza tastes better on a Saturday.
You can strive for happiness the moment you can distinguish it from despair, once it's not a static noise, once it's tailored for you only.
There's an array of emotions to choose from- rather to aim to. I'm not just talking about the feelings wheel (although, I suggest you start using it, unless you're a hardcore hypochondriac overthinker like me), but any feeling you can't quite define. Name them. The Germans do it as a hobby, they particularly killed it with Weltschmerz, I think.
Giacomo Leopardi, the Italian poet from the 1800s, wrote a poem called "Il Sabato del Villaggio" ("Saturday in the Village"). Here, village people of Recanati are preparing for Sunday's festivities, overwhelmed by a sense of excitement and anticipation for the day to come. Except, on the actual supposed day of joy, only emptiness remains. The day is over before it even started. Did the village people feel the real happiness on that Saturday? I have learned not to wait for the perfect moment to allow myself to feel happy, rather to recognize it and revel in it without wasting a second. Even if it feels wrong, fleeble, or wasteful. None of that will matter when it's over.
Go back?
This old fucker from Indonesia right here on the right is absolutely overflowing with meaning. This precedes art-as-representation as we know it now of course, since prehistoric humans could not care less about creating the illusion of their own reality, mirrored on a cave wall. Still, pig existed in real life, someone saw it, and decided to represent its essentials- didn't have to look like it, it had to Be it in all its elements (take it from those cubists guys, they digested the concept for all westerners). This pig had a meaning and a function, because someone created it, and someone gave it a meaning.
