Anyone believe that the potential for this universe has always existed and was meant to be manifest or unfold

Question

I mean just saying that it happened by "chance" suggests that it may never have happened at all. I think it was something that existed outside of time. Perhaps a potential that was somehow meant to manifest or unfold..... It is just that the idea that it could have just as well never have happened seems incredible to me.

Answer 1

You bring up a decent point--that a lot of parameters of the universe seem fine-tuned to provide a universe which would evolve in a non-trivial way and eventually set the conditions for life as we know it.  It can be tempting to see this as evidence of intelligent design, which is where you seem to be going.

One naturalistic explanation is that many universes might have been created.  Then you can apply the anthropic principle.

Did you ever wonder why out of all the planets, our earth is the one that can sustain life?  If you think about it, the answer is obvious.  If some other planet had earth's characteristics, then we might be there instead.

So if there are many universes and the parameters can vary between them, the same principle applies.  Of course the universe we are living in is going to be the one that suits life as we know it.

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Time is a mental construct just like space, mass, speed, or anything are mental constructs--just things we use to organize and make sense of our observation of the universe.  Whether time had a beginning or not, we don't know.  And it isn't inherently obvious that every effect has a cause.  You can probably drive yourself crazy thinking about this sort of thing.  As a scientist, you have to slap yourself when you do and remember that your business is to explain and categorize that which is observable and leave the interpretation of the unobservable to the philosophers.