Just to wrap up this discussion for me, I maintain the following points:
- the universe as we know it consists of matter in constant interaction. To the best of our knowledge, the interaction must have started at some point in the past, and must cease at some point in the future (entropy)
- it's possible the universe as we know it had existed before in a state in which we wouldn't recognize it, meaning it wasn't made of matter in constant interaction but of something we never heard of and cannot even imagine.
- the question of "what came before the universe as we know it" can only be answered in one or another variant of "it came from a thing we don't understand"
- it matters little whether we call the thing we don't understand "something", "nothing", "matter in a different state", "causeless cause", "God", whatever. It adds nothing of any significance to our knowledge.
- there is, however, one important consequence of that fact: metaphysics is just a game of semantics. But that is beyond the scope of this thread.
That's it for now. See in you another thread!