It ultimately comes down to questions like why is there anything at all. But those seem way out of reach at the moment and maybe they will remain forever. Being part of what you are trying to study may obstruct your view in an unsurmountable way.
It ultimately comes down to questions like why is there anything at all. But those seem way out of reach at the moment and maybe they will remain forever. Being part of what you are trying to study may obstruct your view in an unsurmountable way.
It's so annoying not knowing. Where did all this matter come from, and if it's always been here, then how the hell has it always been here, and why is it like it is. What caused the nature of nature?
I bet God doesn't have the answers either. Why would God know the source of God? It wouldn't.
This is why I kind of like that recent movie called "Arrival" or the proper name "Story of your life". A new language delivered from Aliens would be great to tackle the big questions.
We essentially just decided to ignore most of such possibilities most of the time, from solipsism as you mentioned over Last Thursdayism [1] to living in a simulation or the Matrix. They may seem interesting to ponder about at times but in the end they just prevent you from learning anything at all. You can always come up with a strange scenario in which anything you might believe turns out to be falls.
That certainly sounds kind of arbitrary and unscientific, but without some founding assumptions about reality you get nowhere and that is of course not helpful at all. We should certainly keep an eye on those assumption and we do, living in a simulation for example pops up quite frequently, but for the moment our success seems to justify our assumptions.
[1] The world came into existence last Thursday in precisely the state of last Thursday with all the memories and evidence of the time before last Thursday just to fool us.
i explain why i feel that way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13792787