A question which isn’t widely posed, but needs to be dwelt on, is: how come there’s anything? Or, if you prefer: how come there’s something, rather than nothing?
Really dwelt on, this can produce a deeply unsettling vertigo. In fact, I would suggest that if you yourself don’t feel any vertigo right now, then you are either familiar with the question or well defended against unsettling ideas. Be aware, however, that the question may creep up on you when you least expect it.
Do I mean ‘the universe’?
‘How come there’s anything?’ assumes the universe, but is more fundamental than ‘how come there’s a universe?’
It may help to distinguish between theĀ cosmos andĀ the universe. The universe is the particular complex of multiple planets and solar systems (and black holes and white dwarfs) that we happen to be a miniscule part of. The cosmos is everything there is. The universe may be the only fundamentalĀ thing there is, but the question ‘how come there’s a universe?’ is obviously less unsettling than ‘how come there’s anything?’
‘God’
Of course, for much of the time that there have been people on our planet the obvious answer has been ‘God.’
A moment’s thought, however, is enough to see that this cannot be the answer to ‘how come there’s anything?’ If there is a God, this God is something. God is, when there could be nothing.
You may like to consider how ‘the Big bang’ doesn’t work, either.
The question remains.