Those questions are very old. You may think the anthropic principle is sufficient here: complex systems seem to rely on an entropy gradient (no life exists in an uniformly chaotic or static state). Ludwig Boltzmann made this argument in the 19th century [1].<p>However, the argument can apparently be extended to the conclusion that, in a probabilistic sense, your consciousness is just a sliver of a random fluctuation of a near-maximal entropy state. Feynman argued[2] that this shows we do <i>not</i> arise from a random fluctuation, because (even though we&#x27;re conscious), when we look far away the universe looks highly organized.<p>Note that those arguments make a bunch of assumptions that may not be valid in our universe, and may not make cosmological sense (entropy is not well defined cosmologically).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Boltzmann_brain" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Boltzmann_brain</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.discovermagazine.com&#x2F;cosmicvariance&#x2F;2008&#x2F;12&#x2F;29&#x2F;richard-feynman-on-boltzmann-brains&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blogs.discovermagazine.com&#x2F;cosmicvariance&#x2F;2008&#x2F;12&#x2F;29&#x2F;...</a>