Just wondering what kind of opinions are out there regarding an "original act" that started existence.

I've been thinking recently about the nature of existence, the need for "purpose", "cause", etc. Anyone have any good books to recommend?

I guess this can be summed up as "why is there existence?"

Most of this hinges on how you define your time axes, which is a non-trivial problem when the laws of physics are shifting beneath your feet. Depending on what you think the primordial universe was like, your time axis may reach a limit point, or stretch off towards minus infinity.

One thing which is clear is that it is nonsensical to talk about a time when nothing existed, because time would be meaningless in such a situation. The universe also cannot spring out of nothing unless there is some sort of (meta?)Physical laws which allow for it -- in which case surely there is something of some sort.

"Universe" as used by physicists usually means "local hobble volume", which is (apparently) finite in size, and usually taken to be of finite age, though you can use the "work time" to "make" it infinitely old.

However, that's not the philosophically interesting sense of the term nor the etymologically correct meaning of the word (for what that's worth). In this sense, the universe is the aggregate of everything. In which case, there is nothing outside, it is eternal, and all that stuff.

Thought causality is essential for our existence as thinking creatures and must be accepted in a scientific sense so as to go forward in the understanding of what surrounds us,In a strict philosophy meaning it may not be such a relation between cause and result-in a linear system. Causality exists through our minds, we see how every time we drop a pen, it falls to the ground by gravitation. we create a linear relation that doesn´t necessary have to exist. how can causality exist if nobody is there to see it, then it´s outside our understanding. Causality is then just a way to organize happenings that are in kiosk. Maybe that could give a philosophy explanation to the problem of where everything started from..other ways we can´t get out the circle of questions. from where did universe started?-from where did the thing that started the universe started? and so on. Causality is already by a fact broken since something started out of nothing, since result came up without a cause.

I didn’t say that it doesn’t exist anything outside the human brain, I said that it doesn’t have the shapes or the meanings we give it. that I think is pure logic but I wouldn’t call it egocentric. What I would call egocentric would be to think that you have all the answers and that your thoughts describes the reality never said that, I said this was my thoughts, but it seems to me that some other people like to think they have the key to the enigma...that’s very ego centrically but in another way, not in a philosophical sense, you see. Anyway, If you think that universal outside the human brain and senses has the same logic and shape that we are giving it I would even say that you are reaching the highest point of ego centrically philosophy.

Indeed, there's no need to assume that existence "began" or "was caused". If it was never starting or cyclical, there would be no event that we could classify as "first". But if there was a first event, what would that be? And would that necessarily be the cause of the subsequent events?

Our observations lead us to believe that any event exists only because it was caused by a preceding event. But that rule fails in the case of an original event. And what of a cyclical model, would we say that it's true then?

The negative infinity thing is interesting. I guess we could have an eternal universe without an original event if we thought of time going in both directions. Perhaps we label the directions of time arbitrarily. Perhaps we could as well travel "backwards" in time and things would still make sense because physical laws would be reversed as well. I would see a letter appear on my computer monitor, and i would know that meant i was about to hit a key.

Causation as an illusion is a valid way to approach the seemingly impossible question of an original event. Perhaps there is no causation, merely chaos that we interpret as a rules-based universe. Perhaps otherwise our brains would have no way to process it.

But then, can we ever hope to find any truths about that chaos? If we abandon the idea that we're in a rules-based universe, then the scientific method will be no good for discovering the true nature of the chaos.

From the observer's point of view, this argument is similar to the beginning of the universe argument. Was there existence before I (the observer) was here to witness it? Will there be afterwards? I often think that, as Taka said that "it doesn't matter" what's outside the universe, it doesn't matter what's outside the bounds of the observer's life.