No one knows, it's unlikely we ever will. There's stuff and that's why you can even ask this question. If there wasn't anything, you wouldn't be able to ask anything. It happened, so now we have to deal with it.
Your last sentence should become some kind of philosophy.
Look up Phenomenology.
Ex physicist here: Fucking no clue, but here's two neat ideas
Because there has always been things. Basically it's entirely possible the universe just kind loops around given enough time, there are a few really interesting ways to do this but the classic one is where the big bang reverses and there's a bug crunch before a new big bang. That's not very likely based on our observations, but there are other more mathematically complex ways to have a cyclical universe, and they don't necessarily require having a defined beginning.
Because nothingness is unstable. Basically, if there's a concept of nothingness, no energy, particles time or space, but it's possible for little universes to occasionally exist and disappear really quickly, then it's possible that our universe suddenly popped into existence, got really fucking big before it could disappear again and then got stuck existing. This is based on the highly advanced area of physics called making a wild fucking guess.
I'd say most likely that we'll have to be satisfied with that not being a question that can be answered. Much in the same way that we can't answer the question of why the laws of physics look the way they do, we can just describe what they currently are.
None of that actually answers the question because it’s a philosophical one and not scientific. This really irritates the scientific mind.
Yeah that's what I was getting at, all we can do is guess. It's pretty easy to realise it's impossible to answer scientifically, anything that could have any impact on our universe must necessarily be part of it and so cannot tell us anything about what came before.
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
You got us!
starts to dissolve
No one knows. I really want to know, but the current understanding takes us back only to the big bang. Not why it happened or why anything exists at all.
The Anthropic Principle is at work here. If nothing existed we wouldn't be here to ask why it exists.
Here's some reaching: There's the ~~theory~~ hypothesis that our universe is the inside of some construct in a higher universe* that is similar to if not actually a black hole.
In our universe, time and space inside a black hole are causally disconnected from the outside so there can be a defined beginning without there needing to be time continuity across the event horizon. It's often said that time and space switch places inside a black hole, which could mean that our time is relative to space outside of the universe. This hurts my head to think about. Almost like our time dimension runs sideways relative to whatever was "before".
* As to whether this is turtles all the way down / universes all the way up, we'll probably never know.
That's not a theory; not in the scientific sense. That's just someone being creative, we have no way to prove or disprove it, ergo it's as useful as explaining everything by God.
The universe feels like a pretty whimsical place, so why not? Might as well try it out. If it sucks, you can always let everything crash into a singularity and start over.
Beat me to it. Why not was my answer to this question too.
Because when there's nothing there is literally no meaning. Prior to the Big Bang there was no Entropy, no Time, no Matter or Energy. You cannot really discuss what happened then because it would be nonsense. You can't even ask 'how long before the BB did the nothing exist?' because there was no time, so the answer is like dividing by zero. The BB brought all that into existence so by necessity anything must exist for your question to even have meaning.
To answer your question more directly: because nature abhors a vacuum (even though there was no vacuum before the BB because that would have been a 'something').
Prior to the Big Bang there was no Entropy, no Time, no Matter or Energy
Is there a consensus on this or you are just simplifying for the sake of simplifying?
As much consensus as there can be. The BB is defined as being the event that brought everything into existence and so there's no point in debating something that cannot be tested.
That's what you did. We can't know is very different from "there was no this and this and this prior".
I don’t even think there is a consensus on the Big Bang but if there was, then that’s when time began so “before” that is meaningless.
Because.
Aren't quarks made up of the nothingness, the vacuum of space, somehow vibrating? I feel like that's what smart people have been trying to tell me.
If that's correct, then the nothing is the source of the something.
Why not?
Have you heard of the big bang?
I have. Its the matter and antimatter thing. I wonder who put it there in the first place
Because if there wasn't you couldn't ask this question.
Now the question has been asked and universe has no longer a purpose. The end stage of the universe is starting now.
Fuck all this. Let's get a second opinion from the nothingverse, maybe they know something we don't
The question will probably never figure out.
I'm more about wondering about after everything now. When everything stops expanding and all the energy is gone, does everything collapse and cause another big bang? Has this happened before?
Is this "multiverse" many of us wonder about really just this same universe in different incarnations? Can any of these incarnations really be said to be "before" or "after" each other?
This is the stuff I ponder about recently.
Why not?
There is no dark without light. No silence without sound. No nothing without something.
The worst part is we're here now and most of us are intrinsically forced to deal with whether we want to or not.
We wiki never know. My take, which is not a thing one can prove or disprove, is that something that don't actually exist needed something to exist in order to love. My answer is love.
Stuff exists so it can ask questions like "why is there stuff?"
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