I was gonna ask a question on the universe and then deleted it because it legit gives me headaches.
Without passing judgement, non God believing folks how do you all cope with questions such as what was there beyond the big bang and so on? How can we ever get an answer.
For what it's worth, my non-scientific "head cannon" explanation as to why the universe exists, is due to infinite time:
Firstly; a single photon passing through a crystal seems to interact with itself in all possible routes and ways, with utter disregard for things like the "speed of light".
Secondly; we can imagine a universe with greater or fewer dimensions than our usual 3 spacial and 1 time; just two spacial dimensions (like super-mario) or four or more spacial dimensions who's denizens must pity our compact little universe as a toy.
So let's imagine a thought experiment universe - set before our universe began - when the concept of time doesn't exist.
There is nothing in this little thought experiment. Nothing, not even darkness. How can there be darkness when there is nothing to be dark? No matter. No elecronic charge and no neutrality. No Gravity. No gravitational constant. No higgs to boson. Nothing. No blackness. Not a squiggly squiggle.
Eternal nothingness.
And with infinite eternal nothingness we are stuck. Forever. But there is no time, so forever doesn't exist. Nothing goes on and on forever except forever doesn't exist. From here with have no possibilities. Pure, nothing, forever.
Forever passes in an instant of nothingness.
And again.
And again.
Eventually (although eventually happens in an instance and it doesn't happen at all), something changes.
Of course nothing can actually change and nothing actually does. But the possibility of something comes into being, or the possibility of the possibility of something, or the possibility of the possibility of the possibility of something. Something could happen, right? Something, for some reason, could happen eventually? Maybe?
And just like the photon that travels through all possible paths at the same time, the possibility of something happening becomes the certainty of everything happening! In an instant, all possible things that could happen materialise and suddenly it is now, and you are reading this.
In infinite infinite time, anything that could possibly happen, does.
For the photon to travel all possible paths, every possibility must happen all at once. Hypothetical reality happens everywhere all in an hypothetical instant, and a hypothetical wave of being travels throughout hypothetical time.
And possibly there could exist a universe where a photon might exist to travel through all possibly paths through a glass screen into the eye of someone looking at an device powered by electronic charge. And because there is a possibility that this person exists, so this person does exist. And it could be right now and so it is.
And the photon could travel through all possible routes including to the edge of the universe and back and also to visit your grandmother when she was young and when your mother was conceived and also to last Thursday when you forgot your lunch and so it does.
And the universe exists although it actually doesn't and the nothingness is banished although it is still there.
And in the forever nothingness where nothing can ever exist, there is infinite time although time does not exist, for everything that ever was or one day could be or could have been, to exist or not. And because any of this could happen it does and the photon travels to all possible moments and times and realities and the photon doesn't exist at all.
And it is today and it is now and you are here and soon this will be past and you will not be here at all and now that time has past.
And reality will be gone although it was never here at all.
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I appreciate that this mad rambling isn't scientific or helpful, but as the uncertainty principle shows us, perhaps there is a limit as to what we can know.
Or as Douglas Adams said;
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
[And] there is another theory which states that this has already happened.”