Son Goku writes:
In Hawking and Hartle's no boundary proposal, quantum gravity demands that eventually a universe will come into existence from absolutely nothing. So here you do have an origin of the universe, being produced from nothing. Although you could still ask why is "nothing" governed by quantum mechanical laws.
So you can have a scientific explanation for the origin of the universe from nothing, it's the presence of the laws you can't explain.
This topic is oddly fascinating!
Does this mean that the laws have always existed, and, if so, are they themselves "something"?
Son Goku writes:
I don't know how to articulate that there is nothing but the laws, which allow a material "nothing" to develop into a material "something". It's hard to picture only "laws" existing.
Does this mean that the final answer is in fact a question?