Universe

Where does the universe come from?

Before we can even consider this question, we need to be clear what is meant by universe. Let's define it as everything that physically exists. (We'll leave till later what is meant by existence in general and physical existence in particular.) Existence includes spacetime and all forms of matter - mass, energy, and anything else we encounter. One problem here is that matter is not precisely defined in physics. For the sake of clarity and precision, I will take matter to mean any form of mass and/or energy that occupies spacetime. Later, we will look at the relationship between spacetime and matter.

Regarding the origin of the universe, there seem to be three possibilites: eternal existence, a natural origin, or creation. The question any creationist has to answer is, If some agency (a god for example) created the universe, where did that agency come from? One creationist argument is that a complex universe must have a creator. If you ask who created the creator, you're told it (usually he, God) is eternal, uncreated. But God is presumably more complex still than his creation. So we have a contradiction: a complex univese requires a creator, but an even more complex creator does not. There are other arguments against a 'designer universe', but this is probably the most obvious.

But a natural origin poses problems too. Firstly, if something exists prior to the universe and from which the universe comes, that compromizes our original definition above, because the universe is supposed to include all existence. We can easily avoid this difficulty. If we maintain our definition of universe - so that it includes the prior reality - it just means that spacetime-matter or 'our universe' is only part of the whole. But we still have to explain how our universe arises. Even more problematic, what about the prior reality - how did it originate? It seems the only way to avoid that problem is to say that prior to the origin of our universe nothing exists. (Then spacetime-matter, our universe, again coincides with the universe.) But if nothing exists prior to the universe, how does the latter appear from nowhere?

Thus, whether we take a creationist or a natural-origin approach, either we end up facing the problem of origin all over again at some deeper level; or we face the apparent absurdity of getting something out of nothing. The only other possibility seems to be that the universe itself is eternal.

This is all pretty abstract. It takes no account of what we know of reality based on scientific investigation of the universe. So the next post takes a look at what science tells us.