This is just pedantry. Don't get me wrong, these are interesting questions, questions that should be asked and should be thought about, even if the answers are

This is just pedantry. Don't get me wrong, these are interesting questions, questions that should be asked and should be thought about, even if the answers are likely unknowable. But taking issue with the age of the universe because we don't know what existed before isn't useful. Age is a relative thing. I say I'm xx years old based on the date of my birth. But I existed as a fetus before then. I existed as an ovum before that. I existed as stardust for billions of years before that. Perhaps I can mull over what it means to exist, and when "me" came to be, but when I have to enter my age while filling out some form I'm not going to write a philosophy essay. For practical purposes I am xx years old, and for practical purposes the universe is 13.7 billion years old.