With all due respect, Ethan, how could evidence that nothing preceded the Big Bang be found from within the universe when the question is what, if anything, existed before said Big Bang created the universe? It can't be answered that way and a negative is not proof.

I don't have your education and I admire your work, but I lean strongly toward the Hindu belief that the universe is one in a non-ending string of universes- one begins (Big Bang-style), expands, is stable for a period of time, then contracts, providing the density of matter that allows another Big Bang to create the next universe from the dead remnant of the one in which we live and the process continues with the only ending and beginning being the Big Bangs, plural. A never-ending string of universes. We can never know from within this universe what came before its creation or what will follow any more than we can know what is around us from within our brain without our external senses to show us those things. External being the key.

Interesting article, thanks for sharing.