What is existence? What defines something's or someone's existence? What causes something to exist in the first place? If Amos steals my wallet (again) and uses my American Express card, does that mean that "I" exist twice whenever he uses it?

Sartre, Kant, Socrates, Aquinas, and many others wrestled with this question. Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum" can hardly apply in an era when a cheap computer can "outhink" many national leaders, but the entire quotation, ""Dubito ergo cogito; cogito ergo sum" is just as applicable now as it was when it was first uttered.

Bergson wrote, "To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." Camus wrote, "For if I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it , it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers...This very heart which is mine will forever remain indefinable to me."

Is Shane McBridge (whoever it is) more "real" and have more "existence" than Amos Jessup?

Of course, it all begs the question since I created everything out of nothing in the first place.