Philosophy has always been preoccupied by determining the nature, or existence, of reality. When it comes down to it, Descartes was being optimistic when he implied that thought was a sign of existence.
Where a scientist can get lost out in the woods, an engineer can see the forest for the trees. An abiding and timeless answer to the abiding and timeless question of, "How can we tell?" is "Does it matter?"
There's no precedent known to us when it comes to probabilities in the formation of universes. Maybe I'm being even more optimistic than Descartes, but I'd like to think that if the universe were created one instant ago as I instantaneously observe it, it was created by an intelligence. In fact, the same what-if that would, at the surface, seem to make all history meaningless similarly overturns any arguments against intelligent design, though it offers nothing to support it.
In the end, though, it doesn't matter. It's as meaningless as whether we can trust our senses as a direct window to reality, or they are merely shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. We presume we are here, so we ought do what's right.
