Let's forget about time and space, they are models of our perception.
Is there something that was innate in us even before experience? Yes Immanuel, I think that is existence itself.
What's the only concept a baby has when is born? The notion of being.
We are not conscious of what life is, of what being is, no. But we know that we act within some limits, beyond those limits there is something that doesn't act, doesn't change its status with us. We know we are us, because of the distinct presence of the non us.
We don't know anything about the nature of our changes, as we don't know what movement is, we don't know what skin, cells, body temperature is. Still we feel it, we become instantly conscious of being an entirety.
This should give us a far greater question to think about.
If the innate thing of a life form is that sparkle of self awareness; that makes us -plants, animals, whatever- a "self" because there is a "non self". By inductive reasoning we could also expand this "I perceive what I am not, therefore I am" principle to greater systems... such as human society or extended natural habitats.They work as a living entity within their boundaries; they are made of a group of elements and of the links existing between them. They evolve and behave according to their contents and expanding to what is not their contents yet. So we can say that their existence is marked by the notion of what they are not, and therefore the notion of what they are.
Then what if the universe, as the ultimate system, the infinite whole that comprises everything was to exist with relation to that same awareness? That would be impossible, we'd immediately state. The Infinite has everything in it, because has no limits; so there is not "non self".
Then what? What's the thing that makes the Universe live? What's the innate "nature" of it? Could it be that the universe existence is defined by the confrontation between the infinite "selves" inside it?
Also, this perception of selfness can be called a perception because we, human, have organs to perceive it (and later develop it as a concept). That, however, doesn't stop a rock from containing the data of being a "self" just because it isn't aware of it, in the intellectual sense of the word. This expands the self-non self thing to the "nonliving" matter.
Going back on the universe, if the selfness can be thought as a property of the matter, any kind of matter at any level of aggregation, we could say that the universe is a system defined by the sense of belonging or non belonging of its matter particles to infinite systems and sub systems... atoms, cells, beings, planets, galaxies and so on.
The universe exists because of its organization, then, that derives from the interaction of particles that pass constantly from a state of self to another, depending on the system(s) of which they are part.
That, for instance, could explain entropy, this general tendency of energy toward "decay" and the possible reason for the expansion and, at a certain point, contraction of the Universe. If it's the interaction of particles (their changing status, their passing from a group to another) that defines the Universe existence, then it's imperative that they do go toward a direction or another. Otherwise there would be no existence at all.
Also, since -as I said- time and space are models derived from our human perception, the universe doesn't necessary goes somewhere in a definite time span. It just "is".
It is expanded, contracted and in its infinite status in between, all at the same time. We just happen to perceive its status in a specific order that we call our time line.
We don't scramble them in a different order, nor we see all the other universe status. A reason could be that we are able to develop an intellectual awareness of our self and acknowledge the universe existence just in this particular space-time reality, the reality in which our "selves" are human beings.
The universe is also, in two of its endless status, totally contracted or expanded. In Those two status, though, Every particle Belongs To The Same entirety, there are no subsystems Thus, no matter Comparisons of Thus and no "self" at all. That concludes
We Should Those two status in the universe Simply Does not exists.