The latter feels like a classic case of questions for which the answer is unhelpfully, 42. That is to say, do we even know what the question is? We have no real

The latter feels like a classic case of questions for which the answer is unhelpfully, 42. That is to say, do we even know what the question is? We have no real reason to believe that the universe came from nothing, or that nothing exists in a way that isn’t purely Conceptual. Certainly all of our explorations into the nature of nature indicate complete absence of nothingness, which may go someway to explaining the popularity of theories which don’t require it. Cyclic universes, cyclic ekpyrotic universes, multiverses and more all essentially attempt to reframe the question on nature’s terms, not ours. So it’s interesting to think about, but there are reasons to believe that humans will always lack the tools to find the answers. Imo that makes it feel like questions about the existence of god, or an afterlife. They are important and have massive bearing on our existence, but I doubt in our ability to answer them, or even to ask the right questions in the first place. In that sense, they’re less interesting than questions we can actually formulate and hope to answer, like the “hows” rather than the “whys” of existence.