Options for origin of universe

[robvalue]

There's two terms I object to here, so I'll substitute my own.

Universe: I will use reality. If we're considering things not part of our universe, we've already contradicted ourself.

God: I will use creator. God is used as a placeholder for an intelligent creator, and then abused to sneak in a lot of properties about the creator without justification.

As Alex said It seems to me that we barely understand our reality, and our understanding of space and time is probably laughably wrong. I am hugely hampered by the limits of my imagination and understanding, so I'd never presume any list I could come up with is exhaustive or even sensible.

However, in the interests of discussion, here are my thoughts:

I can only split the possibilities into two with any degree of satisfaction.

1. Our reality always existed in some sense, in some form
2. Our reality has not always existed

For both of these, there are an infinity of sub-possibilities, and no way yet to narrow them down except attempting to dispense with some using Occam's Razor. For set 1, this could include our perceived reality being a subset of another reality, or coming about by the fragmentation of a reality. Fragmentation seems fairly plausible, as far as any of this goes. It could also include our reality being "fashioned" to be self-contained, this is the most sensible creator hypothesis for me (although this could come about by unintelligent processes too.)

Very roughly, starting with the most likely, the explanations I can think of for set 2 are:

1. Our reality is a manifestation of some sort of process in another reality. This could be similar to a computer program, or something as simple as an emergent property.

2. Our reality represents part of a multiverse where all possibilities are played out.

3-100,000. Make up anything you like.

100,001: A creator in a parent reality somehow conjured our reality into a literal existence, not drawing on any resources to do so.

100,002: As above, but the creator continues to show some interest in our reality.

100,003: As above, but the creator interacts with our reality, in ways which seem indistinguishable from nature.

100,004: As above, but the creator communicated with humans at some point and decided to leave a primitive contradictory textual account as "evidence".