Hi, Phage and Perdition.
(Sounds like a delightful crowd there.)
Existence and non-existence are not an "A or B" dichotomy: they are an "A or not-A" dichotomy. Whatever doesn't fit "A," by definition, fits "not-A": it's really that simple.
Inaccurate, at least with regards to this discussion. Consider the following:
quote:
A
{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
What number comes before 0 in the number set?
The question doesn't make sense, because there is no number below 0 in the number set.
Does nothing exist other than the number set?
I see an A.
Asking "what came before the Universe" is a nonsense question because it attempts to use the parameters
of the Universe to apply to things
outside of the Universe. To continue the analogy, within the number set there are only numbers, no letters, and the question asks specifically for a number - in the question of a "cause" for the Universe, you're asking for an event in a time coordinate that doesn't exist.
It's true that existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive, either/or, black/white binary descriptors. But you have to ask the right question to get the right answer. The question "what caused the Universe" is the wrong question, because it requires things like "events" and "time" that don't
necessarily apply in the same way "outside" of our Universe.
What number comes before 0 in the number set?
That question doesn't make sense. You could say that no number exists before 0 in the number set.
Does anything outside of the number set exist?
Yes. There's an A.
We don't know enough about reality as a whole, or even just our own Universe, to say much of anything about the possibilities surrounding the Universe and its origins; the Big Bang, remember, is
not a theory of origins but rather a model of the Universe immediately after T=0 and of its continued expansion. Our Universe may be unique, or it may be one among many, or even an infinite number of other Universes. Our Universe may or may not exist "in" some sort of "super-Universe" with a time-like dimension that allows for an analogue of a "cause" for our Universe, or it may not.
We're at the point where we're speculating, and our guesses are barely-educated. When someone says "there must be a cause for the Universe," they're placing a restriction on the properties of the Universe with no basis for such a restriction. It's even more important to acknowledge what we
don't know than to make assumptions based on what we think we might know, and we do know from advanced physics that relying on human "common sense" and experience is unlikely to result in accuracy.
The Universe may simply exist, and there could be nothing else at all. There may be some "cause" of some sort. There are any number of speculative possibilities, and we simply don't know enough to be able to pick one. The most parsimonious answer right now is "the Universe exists."
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