Paul Davies argues that “… any cyclic universe that allows physical structures and systems to propagate from one cycle to the next will not evade the degenerative influences of the second law of thermodynamics. There will still be heat death………. One way to sidestep this dismal conclusion is to suppose that the physical conditions at the bounce are so extreme that no information about earlier cycles can get through to the next. All preceding physical objects are destroyed, all influences annihilated. In effect, the universe is reborn entirely from scratch”.

If each cycle is physically disconnected from the others, what meaning does it have to say that the cycles succeed each other, or represent the same universe somehow enduring? The cycles are effectively distinct separate universes, and might just as well be said to exist in parallel rather than in sequence, as even time must be discontinuous. The situation is reminiscent of the doctrine of reincarnation, whereby the reborn person has no memory of previous lives. In what sense can one say that the same person is reincarnated?” This is probably a somewhat simplistic view of reincarnation, but it’s just a simile.


There never was nothing.