r/InsightfulQuestions

People often ask, “Why does anything exist?” or “How did everything come from nothing?” But my question is slightly different: can anything truly exist at all? Or is the very concept of existence itself a human-made idea?

We experience reality through our senses, and all our observations are filtered through those limited tools. When we can perceive something, we say it exists. When we cannot perceive something, we often say it doesn’t.

But does our ability to observe something actually determine its existence? Can something exist independently in a completely objective sense, beyond human perception and interpretation?

If there were no observers, would anything “exist” in the way we understand existence?

For example, we say trees exist — but what exactly is a “tree”? A tree is a concept and category created by humans. Our eyes detect electromagnetic waves reflected from an object, our brain interprets that information, and we label the experience as “tree.”

But even concepts like electromagnetic waves were discovered and defined by humans. We assume their existence based on countless observations and experiments involving electricity, magnetism, and other phenomena. Even “magnet” is just a word we gave to a material that attracts certain metals.

Those materials are made of atoms, and our understanding of atoms comes from observations using scientific instruments and models. We describe their characteristics based on patterns we observe.

So the deeper question is: are we discovering reality as it truly exists, or are we simply creating increasingly accurate human models to explain our experiences? Can reality even exist if there is no one to observe it ?

Edit:-

One simple example is colour.

For a colour-blind person, certain colours do not exist in the same way they exist for others. But imagine a universe where every human was colour blind , would those colours still “exist”?

The wavelengths of light might still be there, but the experience and concept of those colours would never emerge.

In a way, everything is like colour. What we call reality is shaped by how our senses detect information and how our minds interpret it.

According to F. Scott Fitzgerald, a test of first rate intelligence is the mental capacity to hold two diametrically opposed viewpoints, and still being able to cognitively function. Whereas the concept of ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ describes a situation where one reaches mental distress due to two conflicting thoughts residing in their minds, especially when your actions do not match your values.

How different are these two concepts? and could they be related in one way or another? Isn’t cognitive dissonance the default when two contradictory thoughts are held at the same time that causes mental discomfort? So then how could one possibly be able to entertain dialectical thinking, or is that a skill that needs to be mastered?

Why is it that when someone does something bad they always get the praise and attention for it. But when someone good does something yk good lol, they don’t get the general praise for it. Is it because it was originally expected from them? Or for the bad people it’s because those same people wanna befriend them or wtv?

• Being a good person is considered valuable.
• For anything to have value, it must have an element of scarcity.
• Anything that is scarce is harder to obtain or achieve.

But this thinking still doesn’t explain the actual reason why waking up tomorrow and being an absolute jerk in every possible way, would be infinitely easier than being what most of us would consider a good person.

This is not to say being a decent person is really hard. It’s to say it’s harder than being a dick. It might not be mentally easy if you go through life consciously aware that you’re burning every bridge you cross - but the repercussions to actions are irrelevant in judging their difficulty.

Im 25 male, extremely independent, rely on nobody and haven’t asked for help since i was 18, forced myself to struggle through things alone to build resilience and willpower, forced myself to do the hardest jobs to build character, i dont cry if im sick or hurt myself I’ve continued working while puking to the side or with a sprained ankle swelling in my boot until i had to cut the boot off when the job was done.. ive got the balls to do life threatening things to make things happen and can force myself to face my biggest fears, il purposefully make something like being high up slightly more risky to force that fear out of me and change it into an adrenaline rush, i work an extremely demanding and high stress/fast paced job that takes immense self discipline and high responsibility in extreme heat without complaining even if i have to work 12 hours with only a couple burning hot bottles of water and zero AC or breaks all day….
But i dont feel like a man.. i feel like a pathetic excuse of one and like im hiding in make beleive costume and this self doubt makes life hard, i dont take myself seriously at my job because i dont see myself that way even though i do everything as serious and proffessional as possible and it seems others mostly do take me seriosly, but i dont, im extremely sensitive emotionally because i dont have any self confidence or identity to fight against it, i dont feel like im even close to being as grown as anyone around me and matter of fact feel like i cant even date women because i see them as too mature for me and i would feel like a pathetic baby by their side and not a solid man who can lead her, i cant socialize because of the same reason i feel inadequate, like my existence is actually a joke and everyone is laughing behind my back just like the truman show or maybe me myself and irene, any legitimate relationships i shut down before they begin because it feels like its out of pity so i cut them off not knowing if they just see me as a normal person they genuinely want to hang out with or some sad loser they feel sorry for, il add that day to day i always try to slide in laughs throughout the day and also act respectful and respectable and dont mope around or act sad i just dont talk much, i forced myself to go entirely sober for years and these feelings havent changed despite people telling me those were the causes of this self embarrassment and shame, why do i hate myself, why do i feel like a freak in my own skin hiding behind the mask of a human everyone sees right through, why dont i feel like a confident set it stone person?

What is my sexuality? I need help figuring it out. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\[F 22\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\] I'm 80 percent attracted to women and 20 percent attracted to men I'm mostly attracted to women and feminity in men and women. but would date all genders. What is this called? Very rarely trans and non binary people

I recently made a post inquiring about where the idea that humans are innately kind came from and a lot of the responses referred to how cooperation was essential for survival in the prehistoric days.

We are obviously no longer in that time and I really do feel like Covid did something to our social instincts which reliance on AI could erode even further.

I guess I'm just wondering what's next if our social instincts disappear. I could never have imagined we'd seem to sink so low in our fellow feeling, appreciation of the common good, Etc., as we are now.

As an American, I worry about this a lot.

I am a vegan. I decided to become one because of multiple reasons. The first one being that I was walking around a market during summer break with my grandparents when they decided to buy norway lobsters. They were alive. I saw them flair and wriggle, I stared at them and all that i could think was "image someday, some kind of alien or something manage to overpower humans and there i would be, wriggling in ice cubes, hoping that i could somehow survive, surrounded by dozens of other people, and the aliens would just stare merciless and buy my whole existence as it i couldn't feel anything, as if i was a bare object, a product. That just because i don't look like them, feel like them, they'd assume l’m not worth living". My grandmother bought around thirty of them. They were struggling in a plastic bag as it swayed. She put them in the fridge the whole day before boiling them alive for dinner. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't eat them, I turned vegetarian right after. But this was only the event that made me stop. A couple of weeks before, I ate a chunk of a dead chicken, then i looked at my dog. And the chicken smelled exactly like her and I felt like I was eating her for a second. I threw up. A couple of days before I became vegetarian, I watched the TV news and they were talking about the death of the pope. My first thought was that I didn't understand why people always made a huge deal out of the death of celebrity because why are those people more important that a random lady who helped tons of prostitues to get out of poverty or the firefighters, surgeons, sanitation workers, etc. Then I asked myself why people cry and make a huge deal out of pets and people passing but never animals such as chicken, cows, pigs, ducks, fishes, and more. Because why would some "animals" be more worthy than others because they are associated with humans and not as products for humans, why would humans be more worthy of life than "animals" who feel pain just like they do? A brain is a complex thing and i don't even understand the logical thinking behind "but we understand complex things" because maybe to us but in this case would it be legitimate and would people be okay with more intelligent forms of life cruelly killing humans because they don't understand the world in this "more intelligent" way? And pigs are actually smarter than dogs so why kill one but not the other? Also, I realized that killing really is a choice, because I noticed how easy it is in a store to, instead of taking the dead body steak, just walk a few feet and take the plant based steak. From there, I just kept learning about the treatment that humans inflict to animals. The rape to reproduce them or just straight up bestiality, the babies that are being killed, the captivity, the injuries, the insults, and overall just the murder. So only two months after, I became vegan.

(Sources : Animal Welfare Committee, Opinion on the Welfare of Decapod Crustaceans and Cephalopod Molluscs (2021) ; University of Cambridge, Declaration on Consciousness (2012) ; Jonathan Balcombe, What a Fish knows (2016) ; European Commission ; FAO ; PETA, Animals are Sexually Abused on Factory Farms (2024) ; ITVX, Police investigating claims of animals abuse at Warwickshire abattoir after secret footage released (2025) ; The Guardian, French abattoir closed after secret videos shows suspected animal cruelty (2016) ; Nahf, Pigs Intelligence vs Dogs: Cognitive Abilities Compared (2011) )

I understand that we are raised to think dogs and cats as friends and family and pigs and fishes as disgusting and/or food but the thing that confuse me is how do people stay in such stuck up mindset. I thought of all of this as a teenager. I managed to connect the dots, why do grown people keep making cruel choices just because they want to be right. After I realized and educated myself on all of this, I tried to get people around me to turn vegan. I tried to show them videos of slaughterhouses, I talked about the treatment they have to go through, the torture, the rape, the loneliness, the grief of the mothers and children. I got two kinds of answers, either "but [meat] is tasty/I don't care" or "oh that's terrible, that's why I only get "the happy animals" meat/I don't eat much meat anyway". I'm so confused because the second type of people is the kind to be left winged, be pro equality and think that every lives matter, until they're too different, and I don't understand how you can be left winged and pretend to think that everyone deserve to live but drawing the line the same way racists, sexists and homophobic people do : "Too different, I don't understand them, not my problem and I get something from it."

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. For example, there can be data showing you how harmful Crumble Cookie is, and people will devour it without a second thought. Again, that’s just an example but I want to hear from you all!

I met a girl, and we started talking to each other. Over time, we grew close and became emotionally attached, even though she never openly expressed her feelings.

She came from a wealthy family, and I felt that her lifestyle and standards were much higher than mine. Because of my own insecurities, I decided to disappear from her life without any explanation.

I don't know what she thinks of me now. Maybe she believes I'm a cheater, or maybe she hates me. But the truth is, I never wanted to hurt her. I just felt that I wasn't good enough.

Today marks one year since I ghosted her, and I still miss her.

Broad topic, so this is more of a seed for discussion rather than my solidified understanding. One example I’ll provide is food banks. Let’s say there are government facilitated food banks in a city, and someone who needs them doesn’t go to them. They starve. It doesn’t mean that food banks are evil; however, I do believe it to be an error on the administration’s part nonetheless. They should correct something on their end so that people who need their programs attend their programs, which introduces conversation about accessibility, removing of barriers and social stigma, etc. What to do, what not to do? Can everyone be helped, and does everyone want to be helped?

Maybe someone’s a very esteemed thinker and writer in their class, but they can never express their thoughts productively because the instructor forces oral presentations for any sharing of ideas. Anxiety gets in the way of things and the student’s true talent is never unearthed. Some of you will say that this challenge is beneficial for the student, that it builds resilience and teaches them how to be comfortable with discomfort. Others may say that there should be an accommodation, especially when it comes to education, to track success as accurately as possible.

I don’t know that my examples are good examples. If anyone else thinks they have a better way to phrase my question, go ahead by all means. I hope you can catch my very general drift and this can be a meaningful discussion.

Would you still hold the same beliefs, values, and morals you do now if the entire world thought the opposite? I mean, every single person?

I actually don’t understand it, if it’s someone’s choice and they will suffer a great deal in their life and they don’t want to suffer then why would suicide be bad?

Why are people actually stopped? And even in a religious or spiritual sense, some people just don’t like being alive (I’m assuming mostly because of how governments and society is ran) so why can’t they make the choice themselves and people have to intervene?

And this also applies to children or younger people who choose suicide

in an ultimate sense, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter and if non-existence and the lack of perception is someone’s idea of peace then let them have that peace.