Pure bs, its turtles all the way down

I wonder if it's a cycle. It's hypothesised the universe will keep expanding, leading to cosmological event horizon and possibly heat death and this will cause a rip or a tear to occur.

This plants the seed in my mind that the tear could create a singularity, like the posited big bang. So I wonder if our observable universe is expanding within the remnants of a previous universe.

Multiverse hypothesis = Big Bang still happened
Smaller explosions = Big Bang still happeneed
Simulaton hypothesis = Big Bang still happened

String Theory isn't an origin theory, it's just theory of trying to understand particles and how they interact in our universe.

The big bang is the only theory we have at the moment that is demonstrable true. Anything more than that is just a hypothesis.

Because Christians can not figure out how the universe began they like to say "God did it." But have "faith" .....eventually SCIENCE will supply the answer.

I like the Silva Neves theory that the universe has always existed, and keeps expanding and contracting in cycles

Since there is no direct evidence of the original singularity, (Collecting information from that first moment of expansion is impossible with current methods.) Brazilian physicist Juliano Cesar Silva Neves claims it may never have existed.

Silva says, "there are many observations in cosmology" that support the hypothesis that the universe went through a period of rapid expansion, but no direct evidence that this expansion started with a singularity."

Instead, the universe is eternally undergoing a cycle of contraction and expansion. These alternating phases smoothly follow each other like the phases of the tide.

Similar to the original singularity from which the universe emerged, black holes are believed to have a point of infinite density in their center. But while a point of "infinite" mass can exist easily on paper, scientists have always struggled with how such a thing could exist in reality.

And general relativity suggests that the normal laws of physics break down inside a singularity, and thus it offers little guidance to resolve this conundrum.

What If the Big Bang Wasn't the Beginning? New Study Proposes Alternative [shar.es] via @SPACEdotcom

The thing that bothers me is, what's done with knowledge gained from the past? I agree it is fascinating, but in the end, what do we do with the information? I hope we don't try to create any other worlds or universes because we have already littered up this one.

The origin of the universe is not a question that has ever cost me any sleep. We are here and this is happening: okay, then.

Our minds are limited to the space/time/matter model, which is nothing but illusion. Questions about when and how the universe sprang into existence can not be answered with that model, and from a higher perspective the questions are simply not meaningful.

I am just reading “Reality is not What it Seems”, by Carlo Rovelli, a physicist who is working on the theories of quantum gravity. According to Rovelli, time does not exist.

The experience of reality is truly awesome and thrilling and joyous, but the implications are baffling in the extreme.

I subscribe to the Multiverse Theory

A great being sneezed

No explaination needed. We are here, just accept it !

Quite irelavent to the crisis of meaning . You will find your own answers or not most will not involve theories just a way of coping.

I'll stick with the inflationary model of the Big Bang as long as the evidence continues to support it over anything else. The rest are pretty much speculation and, as much as I love speculation, that's where they'll remain until further evidence suggests otherwise. Emergence is interesting and I look for more along this line to explain anti-entropic development, but it's not about cosmological origin. String theory remains that and evidence to support it is a major issue. It's also not an origin theory. Simulation is still SF. Here's a recent article that provides a brief history of our understanding of cosmological origin:://www.space.com/16042-cosmology.html I am particularly interested in dark matter/energy which apparently make up about 95% of the total mass and energy (in other words, everything) in our universe, according to current evidence--and we can't understand determine what it really is. Another way of looking at it is to took around the room you are in and realize that 95% of what's there right now is totally "invisible" to you--and you're full of it. (Some will probably say I am that, too.)

I’m not sure the Big Bang theory is much of an explanation myself.

I'm something of a fan of version of the anthropic principle based upon the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Niels Bohr, conception that physical existence is reliant on measurement and observation, therefore physical existence and consciousness are reliant on each other.
That which is observed requires an observer in order to be observed and therefore exist, the observer requires an observer in order to exist and observe.

Therefore self awareness of being is the root of everything,

Awareness is observation
Observation is measurement
Measurement brings about existence (including time and space)
Existence becomes aware
The circle is complete.

The most efficient way to achieve this is Sentient Life.

I find the simulation theory to be most likely.

I like the simulation theory. Of course, being a software engineer helps. After all, reality is just the interface of the senses. But I think it's meaningless to ask what it is interfacing with.

There was no beginning - Infinite space has always been here.

There is M Theory/Brane Theory, which is a product of string theory. I like the neatness of it.

Some version of the big bang probably happened, but I think there is probably much more to it that we don't and may never know the details of.

Magic?

Several of the alternatives you listed could be part of the big bang model, just that the scale would be even far greater than what we know. The multiverse, if it exist, could be multiple big bangs same as the one theorized. The question in mind mind would be if they exist in the same physical realm (i.e. if we could literally travel beyond the bounds of our universe and get to another) or not (physically impossible as the universes exist in different "realms" ). String theory is part of the big bang theory. Simulation is a wash because there would have to be a universe within which some entity had the means to create this simulation, albeit it may be a far different universe than what we know. The notion of scale is abstract; our universe is as big as it is, and any other existing universes or other realms would merely add to that, unless, as suggested by quantum physics, they occupy all the same realm.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to get the attention of the woman next door.

Big bang theory makes good sense to me.
For fire is the beginning source of all life and matter. The iron in our blood can be found throughout the galaxy and our bodies is balance heat and particles of metal energy . About 99℅ of earth mass can melt metals. The earth is cooler than the sun and the sun is cooler than the stars. We are stardust children of the stars.

It is fun to speculate about such things. I think most mainstream theorists actually hold something of a "multiverse" view these days. I don't think that a theory that "the universe started from different smaller explosions" works very well as it doesn't explain two very significant and curious observations.

The flatness and horizon problems.