this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 hours ago

It's a simulation!!!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] credo 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Your last sentence should become some kind of philosophy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

Look up Phenomenology.

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[–] jaggedrobotpubes 4 points 13 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 19 hours ago

You got us!

starts to dissolve

[–] jordanlund 18 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 4 points 15 hours ago

Fuck all this. Let's get a second opinion from the nothingverse, maybe they know something we don't

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Take the "no"s out of that and it's still true.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

No it's literally impossible.

[–] tomi000 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

You didnt even try, did you?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

I did and then of course explained that the result is more than false, it's literally impossible.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 17 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 17 hours ago

You're right. I should have used the word hypothesis.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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').

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 39 minutes ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

That's what you did. We can't know is very different from "there was no this and this and this prior".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

No, you're confusing testability with reasonable interpretation via interpolation of data. I did simplify to answer the OP's question. Prior to the Big Bang we can't know what 'exactly' was going on, but at that point, by definition, Time and Entropy begins. It's like arguing absolute zero doesn't have consensus because it is physically impossible to attain that temperature, or that there are actually distances smaller than the Planck length.

The salient point is that Something HAS to exist because the opposite is literal meaninglessness and that has scientific consensus.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago

Beat me to it. Why not was my answer to this question too.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago
[–] NeoNachtwaechter 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Bgugi 1 points 12 hours ago

No, that's for "what do you get if you multiply six by nine?""

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Because, to maintain "nothingness" the omniverse must balance matter and anti-matter.

Well, that became unbalanced because of random fluctuations.

So theres a pocket of matter and anti-matter didn't annihilate for some reason, I call it "plot armor" reasons, and that separated from each other forming 2 regions of space.

So the region of positive-matter, through randomness eventually formed our universe.

The region of anti-matter probably formed its own anti-verse


Ok I'm bullshitting, I'm not a scientist and I made up the whole thing mmkay? That's my amateur explaination of the universe. Fight me.

But like, philosophically make sense.

How do you get something from 0?

0= [+1] + [-1]

See? That's my mathematical proof.

Its my version of E=MC², but with the creation of the universe and anti-verse.

🤓

[–] [email protected] 0 points 33 minutes ago

Isn’t antimatter still “something?” It’s not nothing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

There isn't any anti-verse, normal matter won for reasons still unknown, because the big bang should have created an equal amount of matter and antimatter. So plot armour is a good enough explanation for now.

But since there was less antimatter, it was all annihilated.

That still doesn't answer OP's question, though, you can go further - why did big bang create more matter? Why did big bang happen? And if you one day manage to answer that, you'll have to ask why the thing that caused big bang happened?

The question simply doesn't have an answer.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Because if there wasn't you couldn't ask this question.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 19 hours ago

Now the question has been asked and universe has no longer a purpose. The end stage of the universe is starting now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Have you heard of the big bang?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I have. Its the matter and antimatter thing. I wonder who put it there in the first place

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago

because the demiurge thought it would be cool

[–] essell 1 points 17 hours ago

Stuff exists so it can ask questions like "why is there stuff?"

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