Before epilepsy was understood to be a neurological condition, people believed it was caused by the moon, or by phlegm in the brain. They condemned seizures as evidence of witchcraft or demonic possession, and killed or castrated sufferers to prevent them from passing tainted blood to a new generation.
Here is my take on this completly different than his:
If we were to assume the universe expands to the critical size and then contracts back to the singularly, then repeats the cycle.
Then every action would repeat exactly as it did before, do we really have free will when our actions are predetermined only because the events happen in exactly the same order?
Does it matter?
Why would we assume the second cycle would be identical to the first? I don’t think we know enough about the big bang to assume the energy and matter would come out in the same proportions in the same locations a second time, setting the stage for the universe to occur identically the second time to the first.
I think it would take an outside influence (from another universe or something) to have it change. Could be wrong though.