(The below was in response to a perceived 'between-the-line' concern about the existence of 'many different explanations' for the metaphysical world, and the [possible] attractiveness of agnosticism about spiritual truth)

Yes I'm sure many many people have been thinking and pondering this issue over the centuries.  Yet somehow I doubt that we can discover the answer by ourselves i.e. human reasoning alone cannot pierce through the fog of mystery...in this sense I'm a real agnostic...

I believe we can only know what's 'out there' if Someone FROM the 'outside' has revealed it to us...e.g.: like if we're inside a huge box, trying to guess or reason out what's outside the box, we can never know, can we?  Not unless there's a Person - who's WILLING! - to let us know...;)

This willingness to inform and teach us (coupled with our inherent 'desire' to know) is another reason why I believe that the 'Ultimate Reference Point' in the universe (that for which nothing can be said to be 'beyond' or 'greater than') has to be sufficiently PERSONAL.  At the heart of the universe is a Person - not a Machine nor a 'Force' and certainly not an Illusion.

Also, I'm not sure that an impersonal power (or 'lifeforce', whatever you call it) is capable of creating personal beings/agents/selves like us homo-sapiens - really, how can one give others what one doesn't have (in this case, personhood)?

It shouldn't surprise any of us that truly the most complex 'thing' we know of in the universe is the human personality (with its capacity to love, feel, relate, reflect, ponder, cry[!], deliberate, etc.).  It seems a matter of logic to suppose that that which created the human personality is AT LEAST AS COMPLEX, with somewhat similar abilities to reflect, love, interact, be in relationship, etc...

My personhood i.e. feelings, emotions, heart-felt-ness, capacity to love and be loved, would be sooo incongruous/out-of-sync/mis-matched if the 'Ultimate Reality' which engineered my existence and forms its framework, does not at the very least have the capacity to relate to me as Person- to-person.
 

Regards,
AL
p.s.:  Naturally, I hold that the Christian worldview presents just such a position whereby God the Loving Personal Creator and Revealer of Truth - who is 'Beyond' all of us! - tells us something FROM the Beyond.  He is our 'Morpheus' (so to speak!) who informs us that this world is not 'all there is', that He is the Author of the physical universe, that He loves us... and that there is a Heaven to look forward to...*smile*.