An interesting question, Stephen, and I am going to unpack the analogy. I hope that makes it clear.
The certainty that we have is the omelet.
We do not have certainty about the egg, but the omelet could not have come about without cracking that egg, if we can call that an egg indeed.
That gives us some handles because we do have matter for sure and we can use that as the basis for our existence. Yet by declaring that some 'cracking' had to occur before we got to this result, we are saying nothing more than something like a division had to occur at the end of that prior state.
Something got cracked, whatever that something was, and whatever that was is nevertheless the source for the result we know for sure exists.
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Allow me to say all this in another analogy that may simplify it.
If we have a divorce at the end of the prior state of the universe, we do not have anything extra nor anything less than what existed before. Yet we do have a different outcome. We can say that all that took place was a transformation; it wasn't something from nothing. Something was there first, and (parts of) it transformed into matter.
Where we can declare how a unified field of forces was real at first throughout (in Universe 1.0), we can say that now in Universe 2.0 we have unified fields of forces only in localized manners. Before the divorce is different from the time after the divorce. Where there was one big marriage, we now only have marriages at the local levels.
Gödel already told us about this some 100 years ago. He said that with matter, we can see how matter likes to converge and does so successfully in planets and stars (each becoming a single mass), and convergence even does a good job among solar systems and galaxies (each being groups of some kind). Yet anything larger than a galaxy and we do not see any sustained convergence any more. There is no larger sustained grouping than a galaxy.
So, at the local levels we can see a 'marriage' and we see them throughout the universe. We can even talk about 'family' when looking at solar systems and galaxies. But at the universal level itself we see a 'divorce'. There is no way to look at the universe and not see the 'divorce'. Space is the largest reality there is, and space is not a marriage. Space is a divorce.
So, the 'small storylines' are were we can find things united into one, or into groups, yet the 'large storyline' is where we do not find one or a single group. Using the analogy once more: the prior egg got cracked.
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Sometimes it is easier to say things in religion than in science. If we start out with God, then we have to talk about God 1.0 and God 2.0 as well. We cannot expect God to have just willed creation into place. God, if we want to make God real, had to use something real for creation.
The only answer available is found with God using parts of God to create creation.
That means that God had to establish a separation within God and one part them becoming creation. I have no idea how this God 2.0 would be left behind. What we can say is that this God 2.0 is perhaps basically the same as God 1.0 but that God 1.0 ended up most certainly being diminished by creation, by everything that is now missing with God 2.0. We can say that God is found close to matter, so anything larger than a galaxy is also where God 2.0 stops to exist. We basically can then envision ‘islands of God’ throughout the universe — all of them of much greater value than we ourselves of course. The point being that a ‘divorce’ within God caused creation to come forth from parts of God, and the remaining God following the parts wherever they go.
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My critique of Big Bang theorists is that they want to understand the marriage of the universe, and they are looking at all the marriages they see. Yet they fail to see that the largest level of all is a divorce.
Unfortunately for them, once we see what they are doing, then it is very easy to point at the spots where they blinded themselves.
Number zero is the most-rejected number in science. Scientists do not like zero one bit.
Scientists reject that there is a Year Zero (all but astronomers, who realized that a year went missing if they did not put Year Zero back in the calendar). For instance, the number of years between Jan 1, 5 BCE and Jan 1, 5 CE only holds 9 years and not the expected 10 years. A year is truly missing.
Same for mathematicians. They come in two groups: Number Theorists that work with the integers because they don't want to embrace a functional 0. And then there are the Set Theorists that start with the empty set. So, two groups saying something different about zero. And still, both don't see that zero is functional (like a divorce is functional, albeit in an often non-desired manner).
Economists are smarter, because they accept that the empty wallet is likely the most important aspect in an economy. Entire nations rise early in the morning to make sure the wallet does not remain empty.
But an empty laundry basket is welcomed by everyone, right?
So, empty is not always the same in each and every case. Sometimes it is hated, sometimes it is loved. Sometimes it is completely unimportant either way.
That is what Big bang theorists don't see. They do not understand how the divorce, how zero, how nothing was the most important aspect to understand the beginning of the material universe. The divorce is what changed the prior state into the current state.
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Sorry, Stephen, a bit long. I hope it clarified things and not murky it up further.
