When I type the question "What was there before the Big Bang" into google, it returns a lot of leddit and quora threads where many a 'scientists' proclaim in a matter-of-factly way that the question itself does not make sense, since without matter and spatial dimensions, time does not mean anything.
The arrogance that's conveyed in that smug certainty is slightly annoying to me.
But does the non-existence of time in the way we understand it, preclude the existence of 'something'? How are they so certain of the existence (or better non-existence) of a timeless nothingness?
Or better yet, how can we be so certain of the non-existence of matter before the Big Bang? What if there was matter, just not the kind that the Big Bang birthed?
Apology for retard