I don't believe that a singularity means a zero-dimensional point (nothing). In fact, I believe that there is no separating the four-dimensions. That the Universe is a closed system in four dimensions.
Asking what happened "before" the Universe is like what the Universe was before time. If there was a "nothing" it had no duration (no time). At least I believe that spacetime is FINITE and unbounded. Therefore, there was a beginning of time and an end of time and all of time in between. It can be hypothesized that the Universe exists in its entirety - the end of time connected to the beginning of time, only the "big bang" is actually the entire Universe compressed into the space of a few galaxies (Gary Kazin) and everything sails through in the big bang part of the cycle.--MathPoet 01:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure about that black hole and singularity statement in this article? It sounds awfully presumptuous, from a philosophical standpoint. Most philosophers aren't familiar enough with the methods and margins of error that scientists use. How much can a philosopher really trust a scientist, anyway? Ctaylor503 03:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure about the black hole and the singularity, but I do like to think that like the mass limit that ensures a star will collapse into a black hole, so the universe in the "big crunch" achieves such density that anti-gravity comes into play in a violent way. There is probably no way to confirm this, however. It is simply a pet theory of mine. --MathPoet 15:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)