Pilar asked:

Why do we exist? what is the purpose?

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Many people have asked a similar question. But they and you should, at least, consider the possibility
that there is no general purpose of our existence, except, of course, the purpose we each of us give
to our own lives. In that case, only the individual can answer that question, but there is no general
answer for all people. It would be like asking what was the height of everybody. Each person has his
own height, but there is no height that everyone has.

Ken Stern

The principle of sufficient reason maintains that "nothing is without reason for being, and for being as
it is". Ithas also been expressed as "Every being must have its sufficient reason somewhere in being,
either in itself or in some other being or beings". We should therefore be able to propose some
reason for humans existing. Thepopular neo-Darwinian response to the question, that we are just the
result of a series of "chance" mutations, can be seen to violate the principle of sufficient reason.
Chance is an epistemological concept.Chance has no ontological reality. Chance is not a reason, but
is the absence of a reason or explanation.

That is not to say that your question is an easy one. It is probably the fundamental question behind
the origin of philosophy, and of all religions. An explanation of why we exist will probably involve an
explanation of the world. Myexplanation of the world — and of human purpose — is that there is a
self-existent entity, an entity that has its sufficient reason for existing in itself. All other existents,
including humans, ultimately have their reason for being in that self-existent entity. That self-existent
entity is usually called God, but I prefer to call it X, as the word "God" carries too much baggage.
Initially I only accept that part of the baggage that maintains that X is perfect.

As X is perfect, X needs nothing. The only motive for X to act is love. But as Aristotle has shown, an
entity can only really love another entity that is similar to itself. Obviously the self-existent X can no
more create another self-existent entity than X can make a square circle. Both are logical
impossibilities. What can X do?

The only possible course is for X to initiate a process that involves a number of stages of
self-organisation and self-creation,with increasing freedom from stage to stage. The initial stage of
self-organisation follows the Big Bang and leads to the production of at least one life-friendly planet,
Earth. Life is initiated with the potential to freely evolve, eventually producing Homo sapiens. Homo
sapiens forms cultures and gradually self-creates his latent mental ability, eventually becoming
capable of abstract and critical thought. When these capacities are sufficiently developed Homo
sapiens begins to become aware of ideal (Platonic) objects, as in mathematics and in morals. All
cultures are processes of self-creation.People make cultures and cultures make people. Moral people
make moral cultures, opening the potential for humans to become similar to X in creativity and
goodness, and so appropriate for X to love.

This is the best of all possible worlds, as Leibniz deduced from the Principle of Sufficient Reason. It is
the only world that could produce an entity similar to X in goodness and creativity. Whenever a
human realises, in the sense of making real, the Platonic "ought-to-be" he adds value to the world.
The purpose of humans is to complete the creation of the world. As Nicolai Hartmann perceived, the
creation of the world is not completed so long as man has not completed his creative function in it.
(Ethics, Vol 1, Page 31).

Tony Kelly