Question #1 -- The Beginning

[curiosityandthecat]

[Renegnicat]

I have a theory that might concievably be tested sometime in the next 100 years, provided we get our measurements accurate enough.

The short version involves what we mean when we say "something" and what we mean when we say "nothing". An example from set theory might help: In mathematics "nothing" is represented by the empty set {âˆ...}. While "something" is represented by a set. There are infinities of infinities of sets, beyond all comprehension. But at the root, in mathematics, at least, lies the natural numbers. Here's where the jig blows up though: How do you "define" a natural number? If we take a set of {1} to be representative of something, then what is that something? The funny thing is that mathematicians  have allready figured out the definition of the natural numbers: It goes like this:

First, there is absolutely nothing: {âˆ...}, the empty set.
Then, there is the set of the empty set: {âˆ...{âˆ...}}, which, mathematically, defines zero.
Then, there is the set of empty sets containing empty sets: {âˆ...{âˆ...{âˆ...}}}, which defines 1.
...And so on, ad infinitum.

I have a hunch, fueled by the fact that so far every mathematical conjecture ever proven has been shown to exist in a physical, real-world counterpart, that a system like this is the very fabric of reality. It could be that all the myriad forms and variety we find inthe universe amounts to nothing more than the shifting structures of astoundingly complicated sets, at the root of which we find the empty set, {âˆ...}, absolutely nothing.

I suspect this is the case, and if the opportunity arises to test this conjecture by taking accurate enough measurements, we may find the answer to the question, "why is there something, rather than nothing?". The answer being that there is nothing, and that there is something, because, quite simply, the distinction between the two would have been completely obliterated.

Given that, the answer to the question of how the universe was created might be that it never really started in the first place.  

Nya myoho renge kyo, my friends.