Contradictions are demanding for further study. There must be solution somewhere, because nature would not allow contradiction; or would it?

Sometimes it takes time of mathematics to catch physics, but sometimes it’s other way around. As we saw earlier, in the case of relativity, mathematics was there first and it physics needed to catch it.

Yes, what was before big bang? What and how was our universum at t0? Was there something before big bang or from what our universe actually started? These questions concerning the fundamental beginning are tough ones. Maybe that will belong to the realm of mystery or faith and all science should start from planck unit after t0. Who knows…

Well, I wasn’t aware that Paul Steinhardt is one of the critics of inflation theory. I knew that there are critical acclaims though. For example Neil Turok and Roger Penrose have proposed that there is something wrong in inflation theory.

Like I said before, spreading information and knowledge about the situation. There probably isn’t any exact point of no return, but it’s good to be aware that there exist such point, in general.

I don’t think so. We could detect life via finding biomarkers without any reference to the origin of life. Of course life could also be very different than our life on earth; in this case we must find out what are the pecularities and biomarkers of this sort of life.

The definition of self sustained chemical systems cabable of Darwinian evolution fits quite well to different circumstances. It should be such that whenever it is satisfied, there really is life there. I don’t know any better definition or criteria.

I think consciousness is the awareness and potential self-awareness. There would not necessarily have to be self-awareness or self-consciousness but a potential. Children have consciousness and only little of self-consciousness, but they are still conscious beings.