Alexander Vilenkin has raised the same question. He notes that, in his version of quantum cosmology, the process of “quantum tunneling” from superspace into a real universe produces space and time, matter and energy. But he acknowledges that even the process of tunneling must be governed by laws that “should be ‘there’ even prior to the universe itself.” He goes on: “Does this mean that the laws are not mere descriptions of reality and can have an independent existence of their own? In the absence of space, time, and matter, what tablets could they be written upon? The laws are expressed in
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