I am one of those people who finds this question fascinating. I am neither a philosopher nor a physicist, but it seems to me that one of two cases must be true: Either the universe has existed for an infinite time in the past or the universe came into existence from nothing. Either of those cases seems extraordinary to me. But am I missing a third option? I realize that some (like Lawrence Krauss) have shown that you can get a universe from nothing plus the laws of physics, however, that seems like a rather unsatisfactory answer. For one thing, it leaves me with the question of where the laws of physics came from? And do the laws of physics exist independently the universe or are they merely convenient models that humans use to describe the universe?
A third option: existence is not a concept that can be used with the spatio-temporal totality that is the universe. Just as there are syntactically correct but meaningless sentences such as "colourless green ideas sleep furiously", there are ideas such as "the universe came into existence" and "the universe always existed" that are "syntactically correct" (according to some unspecified syntax that governs concept formation) but don't pick out meaningful concepts.
[ ] the term "universe" mathematically defined as the set of all objects, the sets of all sets is an ill-defined definition
[ ] existence is a function of the universe, thus cannot be separated from it. therefore, isExisting[universe] is non-reducable, and merely a symbolic expression.
Think about these things. They are the real crux of the marvel of the question. And it almost seems puffery to discuss it when these questions are so ...ineffable..
