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!

Here are a few more thoughts on the ways of people …

Basically there are two types of people: leaders and followers.

In this world most people are followers. And that’s fine because there are only so many “L for Leader” t-shirts to go round.

But what is it that differentiates leaders and followers? There is some fundamental difference between them; a difference in the way they think or how they look at the world. What is it?

Reading a recent article by Emily over at The Dirty Normal, she proposes, and I think she is right, that the difference is vision.

Look at the people around you. Lots of those people are angry, annoyed, upset, pissed off with something; generally moaning, or worse. They are in this state pretty much permanently. And they never move beyond it. They meander around grumbling but never really doing a lot about it.

But leaders are different. So now look at the real leaders you know, or have come across. Whether you like(d) them or not, or agree(d) with them or not, think about people like Winston Churchill, Richard Branson, Freddie Laker, the Dalai Lama, Field-Marshal Montgomery. They have/had a vision of how things should be. They can move through their anger to think through what the vision means and are then pulled towards it, taking people with them.

Sure they may sometimes get annoyed by something, but they move through and beyond it. They can do this because they have that vision of how things should be different and they’re going to try to get there. They don’t get stuck in the anger.

As Emily says being angry means you’re paying attention. That’s good and necessary. But too many people let it burn them out and are never able to move on.

[C]onsider letting your fires burn quietly […] and rather than pushing against the pressures that want to constrain you … figure out what you want to move toward, and pull the world toward that vision. Imagine the world you want, and move toward it […] leaders are motivated by a vision, not by rage.

That vision is something beyond a self-interest and personal gain. It is a bigger and more holistic thing. Something which affects a wider audience.

Leaders don’t always succeed in achieving their vision. And different leaders have different ways of getting there — some quietly, others much more blatantly. But without that vision they aren’t leaders and they never start on the journey. Without visions there are no leaders.

And there probably aren’t any working thinkers either. Leaders and working thinkers are not identical, but it seems to me they do tend to feed off each other.