You don’t exist, probably

One of philosopher Rene Descartes’ most famous philosophical statements reads, “Cogito ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am.” He posits the existence itself requires no evidence, and rather just contemplating existence proves it.

But what does it mean to exist? What if you did not truly exist in an encompassing universe? What if reality itself were an illusion? It’s a journey into metaphysical solipsism that presupposes that the experience of life itself — the relationships we create, the objects surrounding us, the pivotal moments that define our character — are nothing more than creations of the mind itself.

Then I don’t exist, and you don’t exist. The words that you are reading on this blog post don’t exist. In fact, this blog post doesn’t exist, and neither does the Daily Trojan nor USC. You manufactured this entire universe in which you found yourself on the Daily Trojan Blogs reading a blog post about existence. Clearly, you really should have manufactured a more fun universe.

By extension, solipsism implies that we don’t know anything outside our own mind. We — and everybody else — don’t know anything at all. Human knowledge is just an imaginative form of repackaging our mental constructions into a way that makes us feel important.

So then, if I can’t know anything, I can’t know that anything that I have said — including what I just said about being unable to know anything — is true at all. No one knows anything, nothing is real and no one exists. Great. I hope your head hurts as much as mine does, and happy April Fool’s Day.

Sonali Seth is a freshman majoring in political science. Her column, “Sonacrates,” runs Tuesdays.