An actor interviewed on TV pointed out that 'To be or not to be - that is the question' is not the question. He playfully twisted the famous line, re-punctuating the words as: 'To be or not? To be - that is the question.' He touched on a point. What is existence? What are we doing here?
We're no longer separate from the Universe observing it from outside. That's an old religious idea. It hasn't weathered well since science came along to show humans aren't something created apart.
But like the child is not just the same as its parents, neither do we seem to be made just the same as the evolved Universe of galaxies and stars, rocks and rivers and trees. Science has the atoms that say we are, but circumstances and personal experience beg to differ.
It's a dilemma. Are we the product of biology or physics, and how does that work? We get lost in exotic queries about consciousness when the question that needs answering first is what is life?
Theories of space and time, that the Universe is infinite or a Multiverse, that we're all living in a computer simulation, can sound a lot like the words, words, words Hamlet reads because he doesn't know himself.
