The probability that we—humans, Earth, all that complicated stuff—would just pop out of the universe has got to be like a bajillion-to-one, right? And if we’re so unlikely, then why do we exist at all? The universe is such a mystery!

Actually, there is a problem with this argument. You obviously exist. There is nothing you could be more certain of. And the probability that all this other stuff exists, though slightly less likely that your own existence, is nevertheless very, very high. Our existence is therefore probable. Not improbable.

Then how is it that people go about concluding exactly the opposite? Because we have almost no idea at all about the exact state of the early universe—we know its contents and temperature fluctuations, and not much else—there are many states consistent our information, and ours is only one. Some people therefore assume that these states were equally likely. But that’s not true. We know that the universe must have been in the state that would later produce us.

Any argument that tries to argue our existence is improbable invariably assumes facts about the world acquired from our experience, which were necessarily acquired by first assuming our existence is likely. If you start from that and wind up concluding that you probably don’t exist, then you have not made a grand claim about the mysterious nature of the universe. Rather, you have simply contradicted yourself.