How did the Universe come to be?

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I believe we don't actually exist. And that we've just convinced ourselves that we do.

I wonder how something can be created from nothingness

>>I believe we don't actually exist. And that we've just convinced ourselves that we do.<<

Although cognito ergo sum is true, the fact is we actually physically tangably do exist... we really are made of molicules and atoms, reality is no illusion, delusion or fantasy.

The closest I will come to agreeing with you is to say "Life is like a video game- you put your quarter in, put on your goggles and live a human lifetime. When you die you take the goggles off and can either play another game or go home."

One proof that you (and we) really do exist is the fact that there are things in the universe we genuinely do not know about... that it is really possible to learn new knowledge. If reality was a firsthand illusion then you would have to know everything about the world you're in- the only way you couldn't know everything is if you were somehow "god of your own universe" and were intentionally deluding yourself... this is too overly complicated and silly to be logical.

The best proof that reality really exists and we all co-exist within it is the fact that I have the ability to kill you if I chose. If I chose to, I could find out where you live, come to your house with a knife and kill you. If reality was an illusion or if this was all a fantasy in your mind, I would not be able to kill you- if I came at you with a knife you could somehow stop me with your mind. But since you could not mentally stop me from coming at you with a knife and killing you, you are not "master of your own domain"; reality really exists.

These are important concepts to understand: knowledge and finality. Einstein brought us all a long way with E=MC2: this proves we all tangably exist. The whole of science was against Einstein's theory because it's so fundamentally obvious that it simply has to be true... quite frankly, this young patent clerk from nowhere coming up with such a profound theory that underwrites the whole of science is frankly embarrassing to all the scientists of the day.

After he wrote E=MC2, a bunch of scientist got together and wrote the book "100 Scientists who think Einstein is wrong". When Einstein heard of this, he laughed. "Why 100 scientists? It only takes one scientist to prove it wrong."

E=MC2 basically says "we all tangably exist in a physicaly universe", and has been proven correct over 100 times over the past century. With E=MC2, there is no "man behind the curtain" or "aether" or "the phantom world" or "spontaneous creation" and so on... that everything in the universe is directly connected to everything else. He was right.

>>I wonder how something can be created from nothingness<<

Imagine a room with two giant electromagnets- one on either side. One emits a positive field, the other a negative field. You turn both machines on and the respective waves travel to the center of the room, collide and cancel each other out- you end up with a null field with no electrical charge... an equilibrium point. This point in space can be called "nothingness"- there is no electrical charge in that spot, no positive and no negative. This is your nothingness.

When you turn the machines off, the fields go away and that spot of nothingness suddenly has something in it: stuff. Where did the stuff come from?

>>The experts have no idea what happened before the big bang.<<

Before the Big Bang there was an unquantified quotient- they may have been stuff in the universe before the Big Bang but there was nothing to measure it against. Trying to measure the Big Bang before it happened is like trying to measure water with a ruler.

>>The laws of physics do not even make since for all matter to be at and infinitely small point much less it all coming from nothing.<<

There are four fundamental forces to our universe and they kinda make sense. What we have not yet found was a way to link gravity with electromagnetism. The universe is made of "stuff and anti-stuff". I tend to think of stuff as little numbers flying in space- half of them are positive numbers and the other half negative. If you put all of these numbers together, they will cancel each other out. As such, it is possible to create a universe from very little provided you know how to take stuff and split it into "stuff and anti-stuff".

What we haven't found yet is something stronger than a black hole, which absolutely has to exist in our universe. If a black hole's gravity was infinite, then black holes would be fixed points in our universe and they definetly are not... there is a supermassive black hole in the center of our universe (this is what holds the galaxy together)... yet our universe is moving along with the "local group" towards "the great attractor"... this is illogical!

Up until Einstein came along, science believed this "other stuff" was aether. And aether had a lot of scientific weight (and still does today) but it's impossible to detect something that is undetectable! Whatever force exists that is able to push black holes across the universe is the same force that created the universe.

>>String theory tends to explain it with 11 dimentions . Our universe as we know it is using some of the 11. Maybe another universe is using other dimentions.<<

I am not a big fan of string theory. A few years ago a couple of scientists won the Nobel Prize for their theory on the illogic of logical math. It basically says that math is an ends to itself, that we can't apply numbers to our physical universe and get tangable results.

Sure a universe with 11 dimensions makes sense on paper, but this is only because the formula they have that makes 11 dimensions make sense is a balanced equasion and nothing more. You can prove on paper it's possible to suspend an elephant by its tail to a dandelion on a cliff but this is simply silly.

The universe has six dimensions:
-length
-width
-depth
-time
-alltime
-alltime,allplace

>>Our two universe may hit each other and start the big bang in a process that may have repeated since infinity. Which the bigger question why is there anything?<<

This is what makes an 11 dimension universe silly... our universe makes sense with 11 dimensions provided you also agree that our universe is also creating an infinity of alternate universes... that branes collide with other branes and form new realms all the time in some "phantom mega-universe" we can never see or get to.

This is like me saying "the universe makes sense as long as you give me a chocolate doughnut every morning" and is as equally provable.

>>They mention that gravity is a weak force in our universe but perhaps much stronger in other dimentions. Like an apple falling off a tree here maybe like a stick of TNT going off in another dimention. If life is in another dimention we maybe able to build a gravity based communication with them.<<

Sure- this all makes sense provided we are never ever able to reach these other dimensions.. in other words, their numbers on paper make sense as long as you don't actually write the numbers down.

Don't get me wrong- I would love there to be other dimensions! But the only proof that any of this is possible is through numbers on paper which only make sense in relation to the other numbers on paper... it's a fool's errand... it's like trying to count every grain of sand on a windy beach... as long as you agree it's impossible to ever prove your theory, your theory makes sense.

As Leonard Cohen wrote, "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light get in". That crack is pi.

I was mostly joking.

I'm almost positive I exist, and I'm slightly less confident other people do as well, but still pretty sure.

mjs82 stated "If the universe is 'infinite', you would assume that there would be starlight visible at every single point in the night sky. However, there is not, there's a lot of big dark gaps."


The heavens are bathed in light, as light travels its wavelength and frequency change. It becomes redshifted. Our eyes dont posess the natural ability to detect these vibrations.

I suspect it always was and always will be. It's a status quo which many for some reason assume had to have a beginning and will possibly have an end. But why? Matter and energy doesn't begin and end, it just changes its physical variations, constantly remolding itself.

That's more anthropomorphising our own biological life and death onto a non-living universe. But in essence our own selves don't stop being. Our bodies decompose and change into something else. That's all.

The Big Bang was probable. Despite not being very knowledgeable in either physics or astronomy I suspect that the last Big Bang was only the latest in a continuing cycle of expansion, contraction, explosion, expansion, contraction, explosion, etc., or something to that extent.

And despite that we may end up killing our own selves off either through stupidity or the eventual disruption of the earth and our solar system itself I still think the universe has always been and always will be.

>>I was mostly joking. I'm almost positive I exist, and I'm slightly less confident other people do as well, but still pretty sure.<<

Well I am not so sure you exist. To me, you're nothing more than electrons on a screen!

And that wasn't a dumb thing you said- most people actually DO think they're the center of the universe!

>>mjs82 stated "If the universe is 'infinite', you would assume that there would be starlight visible at every single point in the night sky. However, there is not, there's a lot of big dark gaps."<<

Starlight IS at every single point in the night sky! If you took a camera and pointed it at the heavens and set the exposure for a trillion years, the picture would come out pure white from all this blinding starlight that's coming at us from every possible direction.

>>The heavens are bathed in light, as light travels its wavelength and frequency change. It becomes redshifted. Our eyes dont have the naural ability to detect these vibrations.<<

Excelent point- we can only see about 5% of the electromagnetic spectrum... the "visible light" area.

I am not so sure about red shifting either- it's more a gut feeling than anything else. Why would God make this incredible universe and make it impossible for us to visit it? I am always amazed at our sun as it red shifts every day as it sets.

>>When you turn the machines off, the fields go away and that spot of nothingness suddenly has something in it: stuff. Where did the stuff come from?<<

>>Not sure what you mean here? What stuff?<<

Okay. Such a field would be very strong. Anything in the air would become polarized then fly off into either one of the two electromagnets... it would simply "fly off leaving an empty space behind". What stuff? Catch a cupfull of air... that stuff: pollen, dander, hair, molicules and so on... "the stuff that's in the air"; the stuff we breathe in... the stuff our noses and lungs get filled with... stuff.

It is easy to get something from nothingness- all you have to do for that is first create a pocket of nothingness. Reverse osmosis does the rest.

In the same regard, the question is not "Where did the Big Bang come from?" but "Why was there a Big Bang at all?" and only God can answer that. Science's job is to answer everything else.

>>I suspect it always was and always will be. It's a status quo which many for some reason assume had to have a beginning and will possibly have an end. But why? Matter and energy doesn't begin and end, it just changes its physical variations, constantly remolding itself.<<

This is a very deep question, the kind that demands an almost Anthropic answer. Why does the universe exist? Because matter has a tendency to stick to other matter. Why? Because if matter did not stick to other matter, matter wouldn't and there would be no universe, just an indifferential quotient of energymass in a neutral void, kinda like what we had before the Big Bang.

>>That's more anthropomorphising our own biological life and death onto a non-living universe. But in essence our own selves don't stop being. Our bodies decompose and change into something else. That's all.<<

I like the more spiritual answer- we can account for everything in the universe except for our own free will. There's gotta be something more to our brains than organic chemistry.

The only thing seperating us from any other time or place in the universe is time itself. And since the sixth dimension is "alltime, allplace" (aka omnipotence and omniprescence... "God's domain") it would make perfect sense that we, as living things, must exist within time itself.

Whenever I come to a roadblock like this, I think logically. "Is it possible to build a machine that can travel through time?" and of course it is! Time machines already exist, time machines naturally exist.

Since it is theoretically possible to be anyplace and anytime within the universe, there's gotta be more to life than coincidence.

>>The Big Bang was probable. Despite not being very knowledgeable in either physics or astronomy I suspect that the last Big Bang was only the latest in a continuing cycle of expansion, contraction, explosion, expansion, contraction, explosion, etc., or something to that extent.<<

The only problem with an oscillating universe is that when the universe is fully expanded and fully spent... and all we have is inert, neutral quasi-subatomic particles, what force makes them come back together?

Imagine tying a bungee cord to your ankles atop a large overpass. You measured it perfectly- the rope will be at its maximum exactly at ground level. You jump, the rope flexes... you reach ground level. When you're all the way at the bottom at ground level 500 feet below you cut the rope freeing yourself. What happens? Nothing- you walk away! Just because you fell 500 feet doesn't mean you must fall back up 500 feet, especially if you cut the rope.

PS- You have as much common sense physics knowledge as any PhD and maybe even more- you're open minded.