The common view on the theory of a universe emerging from nothing is based on the notion of a space in which nothing is present.

There is no such thing and an infinite empty space is just a chimeara.

Now the standard view is like. I might add a bit of personal spice, alas. There was a singularity on which time fluctuated and only a virtual potential was present.

To put it in one short sentence:This virtual potential of kinetic particle fields, surrounding the initial singularity,,
(On which timee fluctuated) creating virtual fields of potential gauge fields, six of which stayed virtual in order to create combinations of two basic,, non-point-like massless particles (the particles being Planck-sized three dimensional spheres, which can be viewed as structures appearing when three dimension of a seven dimensional space are curled up in a seven dimensional one, to give rise to a six dimensional space, in which the extended part forms extended physical space we see in the cosmos and daily life, while the curled-up part represents tiny particles, wrongly assumed to be point- or string-like particles, giving rise to problems like renormalization, although string-theory seems to successfully have solved this problem in the context of quantum gravity, but the problems there wouldn't have arisen in the first place if the view of particles I gave would have been adopted in the first place, giving a coherent picture of the connection between curved spacetime and gravitons, laying at the base of the problems) giving rise to massive quarks and leptons, which furnished the the so needed massive matter to stop the inflation, giving a firm positive touch to the negative curvature which pulled (pushed would be a better word, since negative curvature of space give rise to anti-gravity, making matter accelerate away from each other,; a negative curvature being present on the singularity, corresponding to dark energy and inflation, the bang of the big bang) was pushed into real existence by the dark-energy-like negative curvature of the singularity, being a seven dimensional negatively curved structure, after which inflation stopped due to the reality of the particles pushed into existence.

At the same time,in this cute tale, a mirror universe emerged on the other side of the singularity, explaining the absence of anti-matter on "our side" (though both contain equal amounts of real matter and anti-matter basi kinetic matter fields, which only when combined give tha quarks and leptons on our side and the anit-counterparts on the mirrored side).

The rest is history. Primordial black holes formed the so needed dark matter to structuring galaxies, and planetary systems around the whole universe to let life evolve on rotating planets. Which eventually led to me writing this story.

People like Richard Dawkins tell us the story that all living creatures are vessels operating in a way to prolongation their selfish genes. In the case of th human vessel he speaks of memes. Now that may be a metaphore, giving rise to the "Central Dogma in Biology" (it's seriously called like that! Evidence for it, I.e. organisms themselves not being able to influence their genes, is non-existing though), but genes could just as well be called altruistic, giving organisms a way to live. Calling them egoistic conveys a certain attitude, somehow. Giving rise to pictures (litterally) of people as puppets on the strings of genes floating above them... What a depressing picture I see a lion, surrounded by a moody pack of hyenas. They viciously bite the lion where they can, over and over again. The lion gets desperate. Then a fellow lion arrives, to come to the rescue. The hyenas flee tail-withdrawnly. The lion that has regained freedom joyfully runs and plays with the lion that gave freedom. I'm sure this can be fit in the frame of the "selfish gene", but can't we just as well say that it was empathy or maybe even love, to use a rather grandiose word?

What will the future bring? Probably (though I am sure) a big rip, in which all kinetic matter field fields are stretched out, or at least the potential real photon fields, after all black holes have radiated all their kinetic matter (and their information) away in the form of Hawking radiation.