"Always" is eternity. Therefore unobservable and not scientific. You can say that, that is your prerogative to believe that it has always been here and nothing caused it. I would just say that is not in keeping with Western logic, because in the western civilization's school of thought everything is cause and effect. When we observe the universe you're saying it is an ongoing effect with no ultimate cause, and that's more in keeping with Eastern schools of thought, which hold the difference between cause and effect is an illusion.

Saying the universe is an infinite self-existing transition of matter and energy changing forms reminds me of an old joke about explorers trying to convince an Iroquois chief that the world is a globe that hangs on nothing. The Iroquois tradition holds that the world is mounted on the back of a giant turtle.

Thinking they have him trapped, the Europeans say "Aha! But what's beneath the turtle?"

"Another turtle" says the chief.

"And beneath that one? You must get to the bottom eventually!"

"No!" Says the chief. "It's just turtles, all the way down!"

That's how any self-existing argument for the universe appears to me, a souped up, scientific sounding "turtles all the way down" logical fallacy.

"Always" is eternity. Therefore unobservable and not scientific. You can say that, that is your prerogative to believe that it has always been here and nothing caused it. I would just say that is not in keeping with Western logic, because in the western civilization's school of thought everything is cause and effect. When we observe the universe you're saying it is an ongoing effect with no ultimate cause, and that's more in keeping with Eastern schools of thought, which hold the difference between cause and effect is an illusion.

Saying the universe is an infinite self-existing transition of matter and energy changing forms reminds me of an old joke about explorers trying to convince an Iroquois chief that the world is a globe that hangs on nothing. The Iroquois tradition holds that the world is mounted on the back of a giant turtle.

Thinking they have him trapped, the Europeams say "Aha! But what's beneath the turtle?"

"Another turtle" says the chief.

"And beneath that one? You must get to the bottom eventually!"

"No!" Says the chief. "It's just turtles, all the way down!"

That's how any self-existing argument for the universe appears to me, a souped up, scientific sounding "turtles all the way down" logical fallacy.

"Always" is eternity. Therefore unobservable and not scientific. You can say that, that is your prerogative to believe that it has always been here and nothing caused it. I would just say that is not in keeping with Western logic, because in the western civilization's school of thought everything is cause and effect. When we observe the universe you're saying it is an ongoing effect with no ultimate cause, and that's more in keeping with Eastern schools of thought, which hold the difference between cause and effect is an illusion.

Saying the universe is an infinite self-existing transition of matter and energy changing forms reminds me of an old joke about explorers trying to convince an Iroquois chief that the world is a globe that hangs on nothing. The Iroquois tradition holds that the world is mounted on the back of a giant turtle.

Thinking they have him trapped, the Westerners say "Aha! But what's beneath the turtle?"

"Another turtle" says the chief.

"And beneath that one? You must get to the bottom eventually!"

"No!" Says the chief. "It's just turtles, all the way down!"

That's how any self-existing argument for the universe appears to me, a souped up, scientific sounding "turtles all the way down" logical fallacy.