One possible approach is to vanish the problem of beginnings by assuming the universe was always there. No bootstrapping needed. Many origin stories have gone this way. So have many modern astronomers, including those who supported the steady-state theory in the middle of the twentieth century. This is the idea that at large scales, the universe has always been pretty much as it is today. Similar, but subtly different, is the idea that, yes, there was a moment of creation when great forces or beings roamed the universe making things, but since then, nothing much has changed. The elders of Lake
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