• Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
    23·
    11 days ago

    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.

  • Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    21·
    11 days ago

    Ex physicist here: Fucking no clue, but here’s two neat ideas

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

    • Radioactive Butthole@reddthat.comEnglish
      5·
      11 days ago

      There’s a third option: Black holes create new universes through some as yet undiscovered process. Then your existence just becomes a statistical eventuality, as do every other life that you could ever live.

      • dwindling7373@feddit.itEnglish
        131·
        11 days ago

        There’s a fourth option: every reference to the mystical properties of black holes on lemmy creates new universes through some as yet undiscovered process. Then your existence just becomes a statistical eventuality, as do every other life that you could ever live.

  • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayEnglish
    5·
    11 days ago

    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.

  • flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
    5·
    11 days ago

    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.

    • palordrolap@fedia.io
      1·
      11 days ago

      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.

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
        4·
        11 days ago

        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.

  • untorquer@lemmy.world
    4·
    11 days ago

    The worst part is we’re here now and most of us are intrinsically forced to deal with whether we want to or not.

  • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    11 days ago

    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.

  • Bear@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    2·
    11 days ago

    There is no dark without light. No silence without sound. No nothing without something.

  • Lampshade@lemmy.sdf.org
    1·
    11 days ago

    If the universe/big bang didn’t exist, would numbers conceptually still exist? i.e zero is still zero regardless of whether any matter exists, right?

    If there is no form of existence in which math doesn’t exist, then everything ultimately exists necessarily. It has to exist, as a result of being derived from the infinity of math.

    Everything is just math, and it therefore has no option but to exist.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis