What would exist instead if the universe did not exist?

Answer

This question comes up again and again, in different variants…

The difficulty in such questions is that there is a lot of delicate extrapolation involved. Our universe is by definition all there is; the concepts of space and time that we use are handed to us by this universe. And we are a product of the universe. To stand ‘outside’ it, even in thought, is intrinsically impossible. Our space is inherent to the universe, extrapolating them ‘beyond’ the ‘boundaries’ of the universe is not legitimate. If we could say that our universe belongs to something else, then we have in fact done nothing more than establish, for the umpteenth time in history, that the universe is even bigger than we thought. And if the universe did not exist, then there would be no emptiness in its place, because ’emptiness’ and ‘place’ are concepts that we formulate within the space of the universe.

One more note. It was stated above that our universe is all there is. It can be phrased more restrictively to ‘anything we can show is there’, assuming at least that ‘we are there’. That’s kind of what one does in the context of the so-called “multiverse.” There it is stated that our universe is one of many universes that must exist, but that it is not certain that we will ever learn anything about those other universes. The reason people come up with something so crazy is that it provides a way to explain away many accidental properties of our universe. But the day when people can prove that our universe is one of many different universes will not be so different from the day when people are convinced that our galaxy is just one of many. And again someone will ask, what exactly is beyond that multiverse?