Collin R. Skocik

This is one of those odd, unfathomable questions that makes you weak in the knees. What is the universe, where did it come from, and what caused it? Strictly speaking it didn't come from anywhere and had no cause, because time itself began after the universe was already there -- if the term "after" is even applicable in such a context. The laws of physics collapse beyond a certain point in tracing back the universe's early history, and therefore there can be no study, either experimental or mathematical, of how it really began.

The laws of of physics work exactly the same whether you run them forward or backward in time, and since a black hole is, in a manner of speaking, the "end" of the universe, perhaps the beginning of the universe can be extrapolating by observing what happens when you enter a black hole. But there are two problems with such an experiment: one, you wouldn't survive entry, and two, you couldn't transmit your findings outside the black hole, because nothing can escape its gravity. All this aside from the fact there are no black holes handy for us to study, and we don't even know for sure yet that they even exist.

Since space and time are, by definition, limited to the universe, the universe is itself a closed system, the ultimate closed system. It can be acted upon by no outside force, nothing could have existed before it and nothing can exist after it, and so any contemplation of a "cause" for the universe is logically absurd. So...why is it here? That can only lead to the dizzying speculation that maybe it isn't. Well, really, maybe it isn't. Quantum mechanics tells us that reality is ultimately dependent on conscious observation, and so as our thoughts are wired to perceive reality in three dimensions, we observe and thereby create a three-dimensional universe. Mathematically, our universe could just as well be a two-dimensional coordinate system which describes a three-dimensional reality. But that all gets a little esoteric; every observation of our universe works too perfectly as a "real" universe, and some wild ideas that are mathematically feasible don't really strike me as valid additions to our view of the world.

Michio Kaku, in his highly readable and entertaining book Hyperspace, suggested that there are eleven possible dimensions, and a fragile and small eleven-dimensional universe existed before the Big Bang. Like a sheet stretched over too large a mattress, the eleven-dimensional universe "popped," six dimensions contracting into miniscule, imperceptible size while our four familiar dimensions expanded into the infinite universe we know today. But that sets up a classic infinite regress: if an eleven-dimensional universe existed before ours, what existed before that?...and before that?...and before that?... Numbers must not be multiplied unnecessarily, William of Ockham warns us. If the laws of physics can predict nothing before a certain moment, then there was nothing before that moment, not by any acceptable definition of existence.

So why is it here? It's tempting to use the anthropic principle: if it wasn't here, we wouldn't be here to ask why it's here, but in this context that's circular reasoning. Within the closed system of the universe, there is no effect without a cause. Since the laws of physics work the same forwards or backwards, and since relativity demonstrates that time itself is a charateristic of an individual particle rather than a universe-wide absolute, we could say the universe didn't "come from" anywhere," and look at time as synonymous with location, but even that doesn't address the question of why there is something as opposed to nothing.

But then, the contemplation of "nothing" is even more disturbing and baffling than the contemplation of why there is "something." Sometimes it would be easier to just shrug, figure what is is, and leave it at that.

But I just can't. And I wish more people would consider these questions; if our thoughts were a bit more profound than democrats vs. republicans or American Idol, maybe we'd make some progress as a species.