Why I think universe may not be real

There was a rock — a humongous piece of rock which if the human eyes see, it would be perceived similar to looking at the earth’s surface from a few feet above the ground. Then some 13.8 billion years ago, there was a bang, and the universe had an inception.

The shrapnel started moving apart from each other in all the directions in an empty space. As the light years were scaled, wonderful things happened. Stars were born, planets were formed, solar systems happened, galaxies bloomed, and other cosmic elements came into existence. At one point, some 4.5 billion years ago, earth came to existence in the solar system, we, humans are part of. Then over the eons, earth started to stabilize and getting benign over the life forces. The flora and the fauna on this planet continued the cycle of life and death due to both natural and cosmic events. Against all the struggles life had to face, the evolution brought all of us together to the point as we know it.

Then I happened.

With my existence, my own consciousness came. That means my mortal presence or this body, allowed me to experience the world around me through the senses, the heart, and the brain. Another most crucial part of having this existence, and the fact that bugs me a lot, is the ability to control my own body.

I don’t remember getting born. The earliest memories that I have is of going to school, watching television, meeting my cousins, playing with them and my other friends, watching my mother yelling at us to study hard, my father getting home late, waking up my sister in the middle of the night to make me snacks, and other similar things which kids do. But I don’t remember being born. I have the knowledge that my mother gave birth to me, and I was able to support and trust this knowledge by looking at the examples myself which served as an evidence. So my consciousness allowed me to sense the knowledge of my birth through the evidence of passive experiences, and it helped me to regard this as real, and there was no need to look any further.

The question is: Did all the 13.8 billion years actually happen or just happen for me? I have understood, whatever little, about the world around me through countless books, pictures, movies, friends, family, relatives, and other mediums that allow to serve as information processing channels. I believed all these sources of information because of the trust I placed in them. I don’t have an actual evidence to prove that all these eons actually happened. The fabric of reality that I perceive and have come to known is through my consciousness. I came from the dark and, hopefully, end up in the darkness. Is that fabric of reality, which I see before me, a hoax, and only there to serve my consciousness and came to existence along with me?

I have a superpower. I can control my reality. I make choices that allow me to move from one point to another. Those points may exist in my room, across the world in two different continents, or two totally different figurative points of perspective. This means, of my own volition, I can change my reality whenever I want, just like I’d change a channel on a TV when I don’t feel like watching one program. This thought presents another argument: Do other channels stop existing when I change? Does other realities stop existing when I change mine? Is there one reality or are there multiple realities?

I have no evidence to prove whether the reality is my own, everyone has its own reality, or owned by everybody that I share it with. Assuming that every human around me understands the universe the very same way I did with, the most obvious choice is to understand this as a shared reality.

Next question: Did consciousness existed before humans existed, or came into existed with us as a group? What if, we were presented with the world as it was, and there was nothing before us. The fossils were placed very carefully, variety of flora and fauna was carefully planted all around, planets and all other cosmic elements are carefully arranged. Everything is so neatly organized everywhere for us to find, that it makes my tummy tickle sometimes to think that it may be some sick joke.

Reality is a big question, and the only flexibility I have is to live it.