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This is indeed a great question, but absolutely not a new one. Though, it keeps on being a question that puzzles us. And it is not just philosophers who have been occupied by this question. Matrix (the movie) has it's grounding in this question. Are we just brains in a vat? Being fed all our thoughts and experiences from a computer?

This idea sprang out of the philosopher, Descartes', answer to the question. He said: I know I exist because right now I'm thinking. Or in other (and more famous) words: I think therefore I am - Cogito ergo sum.

But as you can see in the Matrix, you can play with this thought and ask yourself: Am I really all this I see? Or am I just something that a computer or some other creature controls and creates? This reveals the question about what is true/real and what is just images of the true/real.

Plato gave an answer to this saying that the world and all beings are not the true world. We are just images of the idea, for instance, the idea of human being. This came from the problem of finding true knowledge. And for Plato true knowledge was knowledge of the ideas and not the ever changing world. The problem for Plato was that the world and all beings change all the time. And then true knowledge is impossible.

You can ask what: what is a human being and then point at the person next to you but that would not be a fullfilling answer for Plato. Because what about the next person and the next person. They are all human beings but still different from each other. So, as already mentioned Plato made two worlds: the world of change, and the world of never changing ideas (well, philosophers still argue whether he really thought there were one or two worlds).

Well, here we are getting away from the original question, but the digression about Plato is still relevant. Because the world changes all the time and you change. Are you then the same person today that you were yesterday? Maybe not, but my thoughts and memories are mine so maybe Descarte was right about something. That I know that I exist because I am able to think. But are these thoughts really mine? And what about when you sleep. Do you still exist in your sleep. This has been the question ever since and, to my knowledge, no one has yet come up with a fitting argument saying that: I know I exist because... So we don't really know if we exist.

Learn more about this author, Kristian Andersen.
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