This debate has being going on for a very long time (our first record of it is with the Greeks). I see no reason why why [0,inf) universes cannot have being (an

This debate has being going on for a very long time (our first record of it is with the Greeks). I see no reason why why [0,inf) universes cannot have being (an interesting question is whether [0,fin] universes exist, if they do they probably don't have conservation of energy). The mathematics that defines a universe is certainly eternal, but that doesn't mean that only systems that work for time (-inf,inf) need have being. The logic in the article would also seem to imply that the universe cannot have initial conditions in the way we usually think about them, it can only have constants which hold everywhen which, while certainly in line with scientific dogma, we have not sufficiently show (consider searches for variation in the fine structure constant). I think the author conflates the eternal nature of the mathematics that defines a universe with the temporal nature of that universe, as if time was not itself something that was defined by the mathematics. Our own universe happens to be one of the mathematical entities that is reasonably stable and doesn't wink back out of existence a microsecond after coming into existence or remain a sea of hot quark-gluon plasma for all eternity. Hell, there are probably universes out there without time.