Our story should begin at the beginning, however before we begin our story, we in this case specifically, need to discuss what came before, the background upon which it all began. There are a number of ways to approach this prequel.
One is the biblical, well known path: “In the beginning”
The other, more modern, version needs to discuss deep concepts like Nothing, or Zero, the unity One, and Infinity.
And finally another, more out there, concept, using what is probably one of the most famous equations: .
In order to set the stage for our story, we have to imagine what was before the universe was - unless you believe that the universe is infinite… which directly contradicts one of our fundamental laws of physics, the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This law states that the universe is “running down” and will eventually die out, i.e. run out of energy - which is another way of saying it will eventually “die”.
And even if it is possible that it is infinite, it would only be expanding infinitely because our current modern myth of creation is that there was a Big Bang, an eruption from a singularity. A single point, if you could imagine it for a moment, that contained everything in the universe - or, rather, produced everything that is manifest in our cosmos today.
In some mysterious and rather miraculous fashion, this single point expanded and from the unformed plasma it exuded, emerged all forms, including living ones - and obviously, conscious beings as well.
There are, and have been many creation narratives that have emerged through the ages. Some for short periods, some for longer. And this modern scientific description, believed to be correct because it is based on science, which looks at the world through its own filters, is similar to any other that is also based on a certain set of criterion through which it views the world.