What are the basic ingredients for computation, and what extra ingredient is needed to make life?

The origin of life is the biggest unanswered question in biology.  Evolution explains the origin of all species once life has started, but there really is no good theory that explains exactly the steps that created life on earth.  There is the RNA world hypothesis which supposes that before life was based on DNA and proteins, the world only had RNA which acted as both a replicator and an enzyme. But there really is not good theory that explains how you go from a soup of amino acids and nucleotides to a cell wall enclosed RNA world living organism.  The transition from RNA to DNA is also not clear.

PS: I am NOT claiming that we need a "creator" or god to explain the origin of life.  I am sure there is a natural non-theistic solution to the problem but we just don't really understand the mechanism behind the origin of life at this point in time.

My answer is no. The reason is that we can never perform any measurement whose result is an irrational number. In this sense, perfect geometrical entities, such as spheres, squares, circles, etc... do not exist in nature. Therefore, so curvilinear trajectories, or even smooth manifolds, don't exist either. Does this means that spacetime is fundamentally discrete? Is nature solving problems only numerically (i.e., using finite difference schemes) ?

Why or why not?

Naseer Bhat asked "What is consciousness? What is its nature and origin?" We do not know. We can speculate about nature and origin but for what should this be good? I think there is a necessitiy in data processing which forced the evolutionary process to create this phenomenon. I am sure anticipation, association and social interaction are part in this process. May be the analyssis of wet brains will bring some light in this question, but we should follow this question step by step in bottom up manner asking what an organism needs to process the environmental and inner data. To decide if there is consciousness we need a significant prove method. This would be a much harder problem then creating a consciousness automata.

What region receives the least amount of solar radiation and where on earth is the sun's radiation the weakest?

Erich J. Lerner has written an excellent book about how mankind, become so attached to a frame of reference, that is almost impossible, to make a real paradigm shift; in this case it has to do with the theory of the Big Bang, he writes:

“THE PLASMA ALTERNATIVE

The test of scientific theory is the correspondence of predictions and observation, and the Big Bang has flunked. It predicts that there should be no objects in the universe older than twenty billion years and larger than 150 million light-years across. There are. It predicts that the universe, on such a large scale, should be smooth and homogeneous. The universe isn't. The theory predicts that, to produce the galaxies we see around us from the tiny fluctuations evident in the microwave background, there must be a hundred times as much dark matter as visible matter. There's no evidence that there's any dark matter at all. And if there is no dark matter, the theory predicts, no galaxies will form. Yet there they are, scattered across the sky. We live in one.”

Why is it so difficult to make a paradigm shift even in science?

This was the case with complex numbers too, as is shown in “An Imaginary Tale The Story of sqr(-1), by an Emerithus Professor of EE, in the University of New Hampshire, Paul J. Nahim

Will a new world order run by artificial intelligence be born? If there are smart devices such as GPT chat and smart homes, as is the case in the United Arab Emirates and other smart countries and cities, as is the case in China and Japan, this will lead the world to the emergence of smart countries. If smart states exist, what wouldn't they be able to generate an intelligent world order.

In a short period of time, within the next few years, all the world's decisions will become hostage to artificial intelligence. Will artificial intelligence bring justice and charity, improve administrative, social, political and economic systems, and solve all the climate problems facing humanity? This makes the world a planet like eternal paradise, because intelligence removes evil, ignorance, and darkness. Is artificial intelligence the hope on which we build our dreams and convince the miserable? Is it the ideal solution?

Or do we protest and stop the production and development of artificial intelligence, and in return rely on human intelligence before it is too late, until international academics unite in the International Association of Universities and rid the world of pain and misery? Which of the two methods is better?

I propose a discussion on my PDF-PowerPoint "A position in contemporary ontology: E.J. Lowe’s interpretation of metaphysics" - I used the PDF-PowerPoint for the lecture held at the National Scientific Conference dedicated to the Day of the National Awakening and the World Day of Philosophy on 3rd November 2023, organised by the Section "Philosophical Sciences" at the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria. In my inquiry, I should like to develop some aspects of E.J. Lowe’s ontological project. The foundations of Lowe’s four-category ontology will be described, and the realistic feature of Lowe’s categories will be underlined. My analysis will present the components of this ontology, represented by substantial particulars, non-substantial particulars, substantial universals, and not-substantial universals. Moreover, I shall discuss Lowe’s use of the distinction between substance and property, on the one hand, and between particular and universal, on the other hand, which lies at the basis of the construction of the ontological square. Thereafter, the notions of objects, kinds, modes, and properties together with the relations, which hold between entities, of instantiation, characterization and exemplification will be analysed. The ontological structure consisting in occurrence and in disposition will be investigated. Particular attention will be dedicated to Lowe’s interpretation of the indispensability of universals both for a correct ontology and for a correct explanation of the scientific phenomena. Furthermore, Lowe’s strategy for the defence of universals and of their existence against all theories which aim to eliminate any presence whatsoever of universals from the ontological field will receive due attention. The application of the ontological square to the theory of scientific explanation will be, afterwards, dealt with. Comparisons between Lowe’s four-category ontology and alternative ontologies such as Armstrong’s concept of ontology based on individuals and on universals, or Campbell’s tropes ontology will likewise make part of my exposition. In particular, Lowe’s interpretation of the laws of nature as such, founded on the concept of the dispositions possessed by the entities will be compared with Armstrong’s interpretation of the laws of nature, which is founded on the relationships of necessitation between universals. Furthermore, I should like to dedicate my attention to Lowe’s meditation on the criteria for being substance. In connection with this subject, I shall analyse Lowe’s interpretation of the indispensability of metaphysics for every interpretation of the entities and of the phenomena regarding entities. I shall first examine Lowe’s criteria of ontological dependency in their connection to the concept of substance. Then, I shall investigate Lowe’s interpretation of substance and of the entities which can be correctly regarded as being substances. Finally, I shall analyse Lowe’s differentiation between substantial change and phase change together with the connection between substantial change and ontological categories. This last subject will be bound to the question of the unavoidability of the metaphysics for a correct interpretation of the different possible sorts of changes, since, for instance, in order that substantial change and phase change can be correctly differentiated from each other, the understanding of the organization of the reality in kinds proves to be indispensable. The main work of Lowe that I will refer to for my exposition will be “The Four-Category Ontology”; nonetheless, I shall, of course, consider concepts exposed by Lowe in his works “Kinds of Being”, “A Survey of Metaphysics”, “More Kinds of Being” and “The Possibility of Metaphysics”. As works of authors maintaining an alternative or, at least, a different ontological theory and an alternative, or, at least, a different theory of scientific explanation in comparison with Lowe’s interpretation, I shall refer, for instance, to Armstrong’s “A Theory of Universals” (volume 1 and 2), to Armstrong’s “What is a Law of Nature”, to Armstrong’s “A World of States of Affairs”, to Campbell’s “Abstract Particulars”, to Ellis’ “Scientific Essentialism” and to Ellis’ “The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism”. These comparisons will aim to show the points of advantage which, in my opinion, Lowe’s ontology possesses both over alternative models of ontology and alternative models for scientific explanations. Furthermore, in order to show the problem of the determination of criteria for being substance in contemporary ontology, I shall compare Lowe’s criteria for an entity’s being substance with the criteria for an entity’s being substance exposed in the works of Hoffman and Rosenkrantz “Substance among other categories” and “Substance: Its Nature and Existence”; my main attention will, however, always be concentrated on Lowe’s analyses. Bibliography D.M. Armstrong, Universals & Scientific Realism, Volume I: Nominalism and Realism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1978; Volume II: A Theory of Universals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1978. D.M. Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction, Westview Press, 1989. D.M. Armstrong, What is a Law of Nature?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1983. D.M. Armstrong, A world of states of affairs, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1997. P. Butchvarov, Resemblance and Identity. An Examination of the Problem of Universals, Indiana University Press, Bloomington & London, 1966. K. Campbell, Abstract Particulars, Blackwell, Oxford / Cambridge, MA, 1990. R.M. Chisholm, A Realistic Theory of Categories: An Essay on Ontology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1996. B. Ellis, Scientific Essentialism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001. B. Ellis, The Metaphysics of scientific realism, Acumen Publishing, Durham, 2009. J. Hoffman and G.S. Rosenkrantz, Substance among other categories, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1994. J. Hoffman and G.S. Rosenkrantz, Substance: Its Nature and Existence, Routledge, London, 1997. E.J. Lowe, Kinds of Being: A study of individuation, identity and the logic of sortal terms, Blackwell, London, 1989. E.J. Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998. E.J. Lowe, A Survey of Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002. E.J. Lowe, The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006. E.J. Lowe, More Kinds of Being: A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms, John Wiley & Sons, Malden, MA, 2009. D. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance, Blackwell, Oxford 1980. D. Wiggins, Sameness and Substance Renewed, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2001. N. Wolterstorff, On Universals: An Essay in Ontology, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1970.