| Soleron said: While I agree we can't know anything about before the universe right now directly, that doesn't mean that all ideas are equally valid. We can still use logic and our local experience of the world to say what might happen. And nowhere in the world do we see the kind of true nothingness that people think of. Why would it be the default assumption when we're talking about before the universe? If you're willing to throw out the "something can't come from nothing" idea, why not the "all things must have a beginning" idea? The universe could have existed forever in some form forever (oscillation Big Bangs and Crunches, or an interconnected multiverse spawning baby universes). Our default ideas are limited by the space we think we inhabit: flat, three-dimensional, deterministic, and on a large scale compared to the atom. They're not a good guide to how the universe actually operates on very large or very small scales. |
True, we have never seen nothingness, but how would it be possible to see nothingness? I don't necessarily agree that nothingness is the default assumption, but I do believe that this is the idea that most people think of when thinking of before the universe. I don't really care for if there was ever truly nothing (I accept that this may not be likely). I was moreso interested in whether nothingness could result in something.
As for the eternal universe idea, I don't think it makes sense. If the universe was eternal, we would never reach a point in time. If the universe's past stretches back for an eternity, we would never be able to traverse eternity, and we wouldn't be able to go forward...or something like that. I'm sure you're aware of the problems with an eternal existence.
