Why do we want to know what happened before the big bang?

If there is such a time as "before the big bang" then knowing anything about it would probably help us answer other outstanding questions about the earliest stages of our universe.

For example, how did the universe end up with more matter than antimatter?

Why did the big bang happen at all? We are used to causes and effects, so we look for something "before" the big bang that caused it.

In actuality the concept of "before the big bang" may just be our trying to make sense of things in terms that we understand. The big bang may be the beginning of time, with no "before".

Knowing what preceded the Big Bang could lead to improvements in our understanding of the universe's evolution as well as insights into the origin and nature of the universe, potentially providing answers to fundamental questions about the nature of time, space, and existence itself. It could also help refine our current theories of cosmology and physics.