So as promised let’s get this show on the road and try to answer the first of the questions in Series 2.

Question 1. What happened at the beginning of the universe?

Oh good God, that’s an impossible question. And I’m not sure my brain’s up to it today. But let’s try.

The first question we have to ask in trying to answer this is: was there a beginning?

Well logically of course there was a beginning. But for there to be a beginning there had to be something before it. Even if one assumes that a universe could pop up out of nowhere — and physics does allow matter to be created from “the vacuum”, at least in terms of sub-atomic particles — then one has to ask (a) is the generation of an entire (embryonic?) universe allowed and (b) where did the vacuum come from?

In our understanding stuff cannot magically appear out of nothing. As I understand it Quantum Physics even says that the vacuum of space isn’t actually a vacuum but is at least pervaded by some form of energy field and it is that which occasionally spawns particles. And presumably the quantum fluctuations inherent therein could, incredibly rarely, spawn something particulate which could become a universe. Now that energy field has to come from somewhere. But where? And how? Basically we have no real clue other than it is a property of the universe.

So for the energy field to exist there has to be a universe, and probably vice versa.

Hence it is at this point that many people get stuck and find that in some form or another they have to invoke a God to do the dirty work. But … where does God come from? Because according to our logic he cannot create himself from nothing, because if he did, the it wouldn’t be nothing (and hence all we do is push the question further back into the distance) … or he wouldn’t be there to do it.

Duh! <bangs head on wall>

So at this point our logic systems break down. It matters not what sort of logic system we’re using: theological logic, drug induced logic, scientific logic all break down.

Yes, even our most advanced and sophisticated cosmological theories all break down at this boundary. What’s even harder is that in my opinion they always will. Now that may be a failing in my logic or my understanding, but I don’t think it is.

Basically it means that we not only don’t know what happened “before” the universe, or what caused it to spring into being, or how this happened … but that we can never know.

We can never know simply because it is a question that is just not amenable to an answer.

Either that or we have to postulate that there just was no “before”. And that opens up all sorts of other even harder questions about things like time.

I think I need cake!