Sunday, 11 February 2024
The state of play re: academics' knowledge(or ignorance) of the origin of language.
Top Five Questions on the Origin of Language — Answered!
Here are answers to the top five questions asked about human languages, of which there are estimated to be over 7,100 spoken today, omitting blended languages (pidgins and creoles).
1. When Did Humans Evolve Language?
The assured results of modern science are that… no one really knows. There are, of course, many theories, including one offered by University of California Irvine prof Richard Futrell, covered at Discover Magazine:
As we got smarter and found more things we wanted to communicate, we ran into what Futrell calls a “simplicity bottleneck.” We couldn’t just keep adding more words. We didn’t need a lot of linguistic structure when all we needed to communicate was a few distinct calls to warn of predators or to attract a mate or threaten a rival,
“Our brains aren’t big enough; our lives aren’t long enough to learn them all,” he says.
At that point, if the computer models are correct, linguistic structure was inevitable. This may also, Futrell says, have led to a runaway evolutionary dynamic where an increase in the complexity of culture meant that people who had better communication had more evolutionary success; meanwhile, better communication led to even greater cultural complexity. Before you know it, you have 7,000 languages and mind-twisting conversations about quantum physics.
AVERY HURT, “WHEN DID HUMANS EVOLVE LANGUAGE?” DISCOVER MAGAZINE, OCT 27, 2023
But just because we need something is no guarantee that we will have it. There is something missing from this computer-based theory, as there is from all materialist theories about the origin of anything.
2. What Is the World’s Oldest Language?
At Scientific American, Lucy Tu offers some information:
As for the oldest language that is still spoken, several contenders emerge. Hebrew and Arabic stand out among such languages for having timelines that linguists can reasonably trace, according to [linguist Danny] Hieber. Although the earliest written evidence of these languages dates back only around 3,000 years, Hieber says that both belong to the Afroasiatic language family, whose roots trace back to 18,000 to 8,000 B.C.E., or about 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. Even with this broad time frame, contemporary linguists widely accept Afroasiatic as the oldest language family. But the exact point at which Hebrew and Arabic diverged from other Afroasiatic languages is heavily disputed.
LUCY TU, “WHAT’S THE WORLD’S OLDEST LANGUAGE?”SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, AUGUST 24, 2023
Some, she says, would add Chinese, which probably arose from Proto-Sino-Tibetan about 4,500 years ago or Tamil, to which some ascribe an origin 7,000 years ago. As she says, “bragging rights” and political considerations complicate the disputes.
3. Does Learning a Third Language Interfere with the Other Two Languages You Know?
It can interfere with the second foreign language (FL) to some extent. A recent open access study found that “ … learning a new language indeed comes at the cost of subsequent retrieval ability in other FLs. Such interference effects set in immediately after learning and do not need time to emerge, even when the other FL has been known for a long time.”
4. Are New Languages Still Getting Started?
New or greatly changed languages can get started when groups of people who speak different languages must learn to interact. That’s how the world’s many pidgins originated. Sociolinguist Phillip M. Carter thinks that the beginnings of something like that may be happening in Miami as English and Spanish speakers interact:
According to FIU research published in English World Wide, some expressions unique to the 305 are evidence a distinct dialect is emerging in South Florida. It’s the result of a common phenomenon that happens in other regions of the world when two languages come into close contact. In this case, Spanish sayings are being “borrowed” and directly translated into English — then passed down and used by generations who are bilingual.
ANGELA NICOLETTI, “‘GET DOWN FROM THE CAR’ IS AN EXPRESSION YOU’LL PROBABLY ONLY HEAR IN MIAMI. NEW RESEARCH EXPLAINS WHY” FIU NEWS, MAY 11, 2023
However, the advent of worldwide communication has tended to favor the 25 dominant world languages at the expense of those spoken by only as few thousand people in one area.
5. Will AI Take Over and Introduce Some Sort of Uniquack?
Not so fast, says Optilingua Europe, a translation firm offering 100 languages:
Despite its many advantages, AI is far from infallible and still has many limitations in the field of translation. Indeed, this technology is not able to adapt the translation to the target readership. Nor can it consider local cultural norms and customs, the clients’ expectations, the style, the translation’s intention… These are essential elements in translation, to obtain texts that are respectful of the local culture, adapted to the target audience and faithful to the source text. Furthermore, while AI translation can be effective for the most common languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Arabic, etc.), it is much less effective for rare languages or dialects for which little data exists. In such cases, the AI will very often have to use English translation as an intermediate step, which may generate significant errors and misunderstandings.
FRÉDÉRIC IBANEZ, “THE IMPACT OF AI ON THE FUTURE OF TRANSLATION,” OPTILINGUA EUROPE, 21.03.2023
As writer and editor Anthony Esolen observes, “Human language is by far the most sophisticated invention in the universe, and a book the most sophisticated “software”… beaming the thoughts of men long gone into your own mind, but not in a dead way, not in a deterministic way, but alive, suggestive, unpredictable.” It’s not realistic to hope either that we can easily explain its origin or simply reduce it to software.
Man's global Dominion has not gone totally unchallenged.
The Most Deadly Man-Eating Lions In History
Man-eater, the very word strikes fear in the hearts of many. The term is used to refer to an animal that attacks or kills humans. Animals involved in these attacks range from sharks to wolves and crocodiles to big cats. Of human deaths by big cats, many have been caused by lions in particular. What drives a lion to kill humans? Lack of prey is the main factor behind this occurrence. When lions cannot find food, they are forced to search over many miles. Becoming desperate, they will often turn to livestock or humans for survival. Human activity is responsible for declining prey populations. With humans infringing on lion territory, lions are running out of places to go. Humans are also an easier prey to catch which is appealing to older or sick lions. Some scientists claim that once a predator tastes human blood, they will develop a preference for it and begin to seek out people as prey. This theory could explain why some animals are repeat offenders. Below are some of the most vicious man-eating lions in history.
Most Dreaded Man-Eating Lions
Man-Eaters Of Njombe
Between 1932 and 1947, the people of southern Tanzania lived under fear of being attacked by lions. One pride (a group of lions) of 15 lions was especially violent, earning them the name of “Man-eaters of Njombe”. These lions were triggered by the British colonial government’s efforts to control an outbreak of rinderpest virus. In order to stop the virus that was killing local livestock, the government began killing off wild animals like zebra, wildebeest, and antelope. Consequently, lions began to starve and search for alternative prey. The Njombe pride was clever, moving through the night and killing during the day which is opposite of typical lion behavior. Before they were exterminated by the British game warden, the Njombe pride claimed the lives of approximately 1,500 victims.
Tsavo Lions
The Tsavo man-eaters have been immortalized on the silver screen and have villainized their descendants, the Tsavo lion. This lion species travels in smaller pride, and the males are easily recognized by their lack of a mane. In 1898, 2 of them had their sights set on a railroad crew along the Tsavo River in Kenya. They have been blamed for the death of 140 workers. One of the possible explanations for this behavior is that the lions got a taste for human blood after scavenging on the corpses of workers. Many of these men were slaves and not given a proper burial thus leaving their bodies exposed to the lions. This opportunity motivated their preference for human prey, and the lions continued attacking the living. The men were so scared that the majority left the job. The chief engineer finally visited the project site and killed the two lions. Recent estimates suggest the two were responsible for a significantly lower victim count.
Chiengi Charlie
Chiengi Charlie, also known as the White Lion due to his light color, terrorized present-day Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) in 1909. His strange appearance, white-like with only half a tail, led villagers to revere him as one might revere a legend. He moved among villages preying on the inhabitants and eventually joining forces with two other lions. Rumors have it that Chiengi Charlie even killed a servant who had been sent to hunt him down. He managed to elude villagers for a year and during that time devoured 90 people. He was eventually shot.
Osama
Osama, the Arabic word for lion, killed over 50 people from 2002 to 2004 in Rufiji, Tanzania. When he was shot in 2004, he was only 3 ½ years old. His young age has led some scientists to believe that Osama learned to hunt for people from his mother. Others claim he singled out humans because of a large abscess on one of his molars, human flesh being more tender than other animals.
Lion Of Mfuwe
In 1991, the Lion of Mfuwe killed an estimated six people in the Luangwa River Valley of Zambia. A man from California in the US was visiting on safari at the time and reportedly waited in a hunting blind for nearly three weeks before getting the opportunity to shoot the lion. Villagers claim that the lion was so fearless that he sauntered through the middle of the town carrying the laundry basket of one of his casualties. His size was enormous, nearly 10 feet in length, and today, his body can be found at the Field Museum in Chicago.
Ongoing Fear
These man-eating lions will live on as the subjects of oral stories passed on by inhabitants of the villages where these creatures once preyed. They will serve as lessons for small children, a reminder to pay close attention to their surroundings and watch out for lions. Their deaths are not in vain, and everybody can learn a lesson from their stories. Human interference is often the root cause of these killings. When ravaged by hunger and pushed to desperation, big cats can and will turn to humans for food.
On Christian physicalism
We are Christian physicalists. Why? Because as those who believe in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures we are convinced that the bible ,properly understood, holds to this view of earthly life including human life.
ecclesiastes ch.3:19,20KJV"19For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. 20All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.".
Now we do not hold to a reductive physicalism. We do not e.g believe that left alone matter and the laws of physics would eventually produce life,consciousness,intelligence or free moral agency or that there is no meaningful difference between living and nonliving matter. You can tell that the Lord JEHOVAH distinguishes between living and nonliving matter by his law regarding the way that we are to deal with even subhuman lifeforms.
Deuteronomy ch.5:14NIV"but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do."
Proverbs ch.12:10KJV"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."
Matthew ch.10:29KJV,"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care."
It's important to understand that the beasts are souls(Greek psyche/Hebrew nephesh) like man
Genesis Ch.1:20KJV"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature(Nephesh/psyche) that hath life"
Indeed all life is to be regarded as sacred:
Leviticus ch.17:11KJV" the life(Nephesh/psyche) of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."
Even the lifeblood of the brute beast is to be distinguished from any nonliving substance indeed regarded as sacred.
Christian physicalism is necessary for a proper understanding of the atonement.
Blood would not be necessary for the sustaining of a spirit self. And hence could not redeem such a nonphysical self.
Hebrews ch.2:14-16NIV"14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16For surely it is not angels(Spirits) he helps, but Abraham’s descendants(physical souls dependent on flesh and blood). "
This is the only way that a truly substitutionary atonement can be effected by means of blood.
Friday, 9 February 2024
The concept of the chronospecies is becoming a palaeospecies?
Fossil Friday: Chronospecies, a Sinking Ship
In my public presentations and articles on the problems for neo-Darwinism raised by the ubiquitous discontinuities of the fossil record, I usually do not just present a series of abrupt appearances of new body plans in the history of life. Rather, I also describe how gradualism fails to be supported even on lower taxonomic levels. One example is my Evolution News article from September 2019, where I showed how all the three major textbook examples for alleged gradual species-to-species transitions have been debunked by more modern mainstream research (Bechly 2019).
The Concept of Chronospecies
A potential response by Darwinists could be to refer to the concept of chronospecies in paleontology (sometimes called paleospecies or morphospecies), which was introduced by George (1956) for the naming of successive species in a single evolving lineage. Putative examples are known from marine protozoans (e.g., foraminiferans, see Wei 1987), marine invertebrates (e.g., ammonites, see Dzik 1990), and a few cases in vertebrates, such as fossil water rats (see Escudé et al. 2008) and the extinct endemic bovid Myotragus from the Mediterranean Balearic islands of Mallorca and Menorca (Moya Sola & Moya 1982, Köhler & Moya-Sola 2004, Bover & Alcover 2005, Moya Sola et al 2007, Bover et al. 2010).
Of course, such chronospecies are not at all uncontroversial. Some experts deny that these represent macroevolutionary speciation, but instead simply represent microevolutionary changes within a single species (e.g., Willmann 1985, Allmon 2016), and thus are completely arbitrary delimitations (Cain 1954, Thomas 1956, Simpson 1961: 165, Mayr 1963: 24, Mayr & Ashlock 1991: 106) of chunks of a genealogical nexus (Kitts & Kitts 1979, Kitts 1983, Lyman & O’Brien 2002). But in all fairness, such fuzzy chunks arguably are what we should expect to find if there were indeed gradual species-to-species transitions, especially in cases of anagenetic change within a single evolving species lineage.
A Common Pattern
But, even in the few known cases, it has become a common pattern that new research tends to challenge and refute the status of chronospecies. One example are the marine sloths of the extinct genus Thalassocnus, which lived with five successive species in the Late Miocene and Pliocene along the Pacific coast in South America. “They were regarded by McDonald and Muizon (2002) as segments of a single lineage representing the initial and progressively more aquatic adaptations” (Muizon et al. 2003). Nevertheless, the study by Muizon et al. (2003) concluded that:
Parsimony analysis does not resolve the relative positions of T. antiquus and T. natans, and, therefore, does not fully confirm the possibility of a single Thalassocnus lineage, which spans over 4 Ma. However, Thalassocnus is an endemic genus and the stratigraphic distribution of its four species is well known. Furthermore, some characters indicate a continuous evolution from the oldest (T. antiquus) to the youngest species (T. carolomartini). Therefore, we prefer the hypothesis of a single Thalassocnus lineage, although a more complex evolutionary scenario is not discarded.
The authors elaborated that:
The new parsimony analysis presented here indicates that the four species of Thalassocnus may not represent a single evolving lineage. … Although parsimony analysis indicates that the absence and existence of a single time-successive lineage including all four species of Thalassocnus are equally parsimonious, we are reluctant to accept the first interpretation. … To conclude, a definitive decision is not easy to establish because reversals could explain the morphology … In spite of the result of the parsimony analysis, we believe that the exclusion of T. natans from a ‘‘Thalassocnus lineage’’ would be a surprising coincidence and that only a single Thalassocnus lineage is likely to have existed in the southeastern Pacific. … However, we do not discard the possibility of a more complex evolutionary scenario for Thalassocnus.
Slowly Sinking
In short: There is by no means unequivocal evidence for gradual anagenetic speciation in the case of the aquatic sloth Thalassocnus. Given the other refuted examples (see Bechly 2019), this raises further doubts about the validity of the few remaining cases of alleged gradual species-to-species transitions. Stanley (1978) found in his seminal analysis of chronospecies that “most net evolutionary change must have been associated with saltational speciation.” Also the metastudy of Hunt (2010), who looked at 150 years of research on the fossil evidence for speciation since the time of Darwin, found no evidence for the directional change predicted by anagenetic (or even cladogenetic) speciation (see Bechly 2019). The “ship” of chronospecies seems to be slowly sinking, which suggests that non-gradual processes dominated the history of life even on the lower taxonomic levels. That is consistent with intelligent design theory but inconsistent with neo-Darwinian evolution.
The Ovum vs. Darwin.
The Exquisite Design of Egg Cells
In two previous articles (here and here), I discussed the irreducible complexity of sperm cells and the seminal fluid for successful fertilization. Now, I will review the exquisite design features of a female egg cell (also called an ovum, plural ova). Here is an animation of the incredible process of reproduction, from ejaculation to birth.
Oogenesis
Oogenesis (the process of egg cell formation) begins during embryonic development when the primordial germ cells are specified. These cells migrate to the genital ridges, which later develop into the female ovaries. Prior to birth, the primordial germ cells undergo mitotic divisions to form oogonia, the precursor cells for eggs. These oogonia transform into primary oocytes, which are diploid cells arrested in prophase I of meiosis. This arrest typically occurs before or shortly following birth.
Primary oocytes are surrounded by somatic cells to form primordial follicles, which go through a process called folliculogenesis, where they develop into primary, secondary and eventually tertiary follicles. As a female reaches sexual maturity, some primary oocytes are activated each menstrual cycle. The activated primary oocyte completes meiotic division I, resulting in the formation of a secondary oocyte and a smaller cell called a polar body (the primary purpose of the polar body is to discard the extra genetic material that is produced during meiosis). However, the secondary oocyte is arrested in metaphase II.
The mature follicle ruptures during ovulation, releasing the secondary oocyte into the fallopian tube. If fertilized by a sperm cell, the secondary oocyte completes meiotic division II, resulting in a mature egg (ovum) and another polar body. If fertilization does not occur, meiosis II is not completed. After ovulation, the remaining follicle transforms into the corpus luteum, which secretes hormones like progesterone to prepare the uterus for a potential pregnancy. If fertilization doesn’t happen, the corpus luteum degenerates, resulting in a drop in hormone levels. This triggers menstruation, and the cycle resets.
Fertilization
As I discussed previously, sperm cells swim through the female reproductive tract, directed by the cilia, in addition to chemical signals. Chemicals called chemoattractants are released by the egg cell, and these serve as signaling molecules that generate a concentration gradient. The sperm cell is capable of chemotaxis, a process that results in the sperm cell moving up the concentration gradient, towards higher chemoattractant concentrations. Changes in chemoattractant concentration are detected by specialized receptors on the surface of sperm cells. When an increase in concentration is detected, a signaling cascade is triggered within the cell, which influences the flagellum’s beating pattern. Thus, the sperm moves progressively in the direction of the egg — that is, the source of the chemoattractants. As the sperm swims towards the egg, the concentration of chemoattractants is continuously being measured, which allows it to adjust its course in order to fine-tune its movements. Once the sperm gets within close proximity of the egg, it encounters other signaling molecules that further guide the sperm cells and direct it towards the egg’s plasma membrane, the site of fertilization.
Upon reaching the egg, the sperm cell encounters the zona pellucida, a glycoprotein rich matrix that surrounds the egg. Sperm-egg recognition begins with the interaction between glycoproteins on both the sperm surface and zona pellucida, thereby guiding the sperm cell towards the egg cell’s surface.
In a previous article, I wrote about the acrosome, a specialized structure possessed by sperm cells, that contains enzymes that aid in penetrating the egg’s protective barriers. Contact between the sperm and the zona pellucida results in the acrosome undergoing exocytosis, releasing these enzymes. These enzymes help to create a pathway for the sperm to arrive at the plasma membrane of the egg. Once through, fusion occurs between the egg and the sperm’s plasma membrane, thereby allowing the sperm’s genetic material to come into proximity with the egg’s cytoplasm.
Egg Activation
Upon fusion of the plasma membranes of the sperm and egg, various changes are triggered in the egg, collectively referred to as “egg activation.” First, the egg’s membrane becomes less permeable to other sperm, in order to prevent a single egg from being fertilized by more than one sperm cell. The fast block to polyspermy involves a change in the electrical properties of the egg’s plasma membrane. When the sperm’s outer layers are successfully penetrated by the sperm cell, it triggers the release of calcium ions (Ca2+) from intracellular stores in the egg.
The influx of calcium ions serves as a signal to initiate changes in the egg’s membrane potential. Ion channels on the egg’s membrane are opened, and facilitate the entry of sodium ions (Na+). The consequence is that the egg’s plasma membrane depolarizes. Normally, the egg’s membrane is maintained at a negative resting potential. However, the influx of positive sodium ions neutralizes this negative potential, making the membrane potential less negative. The altered membrane potential makes it more difficult for other sperm to initiate the fusion process, and thereby creates a temporary electrical barrier that inhibits additional sperm from fusing with the egg. The depolarization is a temporary phenomenon. After a brief period, the egg membrane potential is restored to its normal resting state (often referred to as “resetting” the egg).
A secondary defense against polyspermy is known as the slow block, or the “cortical reaction.” As calcium ions are released upon fertilization, this triggers the exocytosis of cortical granules, located just beneath the egg’s plasma membrane, containing enzymes. The glycoproteins in the zona pellucida are cross-linked by these enzymes, and this results in the hardening of the zona pellucida, reducing its permeability. The modified zona pellucida forms a structure called the “fertilization envelope,” which surrounds the egg, forming a barrier that physically blocks additional sperm from gaining access to the egg’s surface.
Changes also take place in the egg cell that promote the completion of meiosis and initiate early embryonic development. The genetic material of the sperm and egg, consisting of a single set of chromosomes each (23 chromosomes in humans), combine to form a diploid cell called the zygote, which contains the full set of chromosomes needed to develop a new individual. This instantly determines gender, eye and hair color, and many other traits.
After fertilization has occurred, the zygote begins to undergo a series of rapid cell divisions through a process called cleavage. This results in the development of a multicellular embryo, which travels through the fallopian tube towards the uterus. Eventually, it arrives at the uterus and attaches to the uterine lining in a process called implantation.
An Exquisite Design
As one can see from the foregoing discussion, the development of an egg cell and its activation in response to encountering a sperm cell exhibit exquisite design, being contingent upon multiple mutually dependent processes, all of which are needed for successful reproduction. When considered in conjunction with the incredible engineering features of the sperm cell and the seminal fluid (discussed in a previous articles), it would seem to put the thesis of design almost beyond question
Survival of the most reproductive?
A Darwinian Dilemma: The Paradox of Reproduction
Fundamental to the understanding of life is the study of physiology. Physiology is that branch of biology which describes the functions of the various organs and tissues that make life possible. All the separate organ systems perform different functions that are required for life to exist, e.g., respiration, circulation, digestion, detoxification, excretion, metabolism, etc.
Without all of the systems working constantly, consistently, efficiently, and effectively, life would cease. Together, they are necessary and sufficient to sustain the life of the individual. Because life is all about survival, correct? According to Charles Darwin, organisms are here solely on the basis of their ability to survive, with natural selection eliminating those unable to prevail against their more fit competitors.
A Unique Organ System
And yet… Astonishingly, there is one unique organ system that actually detracts from the chances of survival of even the fittest individuals. One organ system that makes survival less likely, even to the point of seriously endangering the life of the individual. Writing here this morning, biologist Jonathan McLatchie detailed one part of it.
That system is the reproductive system. In order to survive in the wild, an organism has to acquire food, conserve energy, find a safe niche, and avoid predation, injury, or mishap. However, reproduction requires that an organism give up food, expend energy, and dispense with safety by engaging in risky behaviors. All these activities actually decrease the odds of individual survival.
So, Darwin’s theory of natural selection really is not about survival of the fittest, but survival of those best at reproduction. He characterized this as “reproductive selection.” But he was not referring to the dangers of reproduction at all. He was referring rather to the ability of competing males to acquire breeding privilege.
But Therein Lies a Paradox
Why should an individual organism devote itself to something other than itself? If organisms are really just blindly generated collections of molecules, why would these “molecular aggregates” struggle for life, and even much more than that, risk their own life for the sake of offspring?
As always, the perennial answer to such questions comes back to purpose. As I have mentioned repeatedly in previous posts here on the science of purpose, life itself is nothing if not purpose-driven.
And this purposive intentionality, which extends all the way up from the DNA to the cell to the organ to total body physiology, culminates in the most purposeful action in all of life, renewal by reproduction. Because, in the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, “All things are ordered to their end.”
More on the humanity of ancient humans.
Human Origins and the Beginning of Art
Last week for Fossil Friday, paleontologist Günter Bechly noted here, “In my humble opinion, the evidence for symbolic thinking, language, and genetic admixture clearly suggests that Neanderthals belong to our very own species.” The reason such a statement might seem controversial in some quarters is that it was long held that Neanderthals did not think like modern humans do and could not have produced artwork. Put simply, they were not “like us.”
But there is now evidence of something like artwork among several ancient human types, not just Neanderthals. Thus, an academic controversy has arisen: “But is it really ‘art’?”
We are more accustomed to hearing that question debated fiercely in and around modern art galleries than paleontology departments. Thus, some seek to shift the discussion to something more general and basic. Take, for example, the Neanderthal etchings on a deer’s toe bone from the Unicorn Cave 51,000 years ago:
“The engraved bone from Einhornhöhle is at least 50,000 years old and thus ranges among the oldest known symbolic objects,” said Dirk Leder, an archaeologist with the Lower Saxony state government who has published research on the object. The meaning of the symbolism is lost to time, but it may have been “a device intended to communicate with other group members, outsiders, spirits or the like — we simply don’t know,” he said.
TOM METCALFE, “DID ART EXIST BEFORE MODERN HUMANS? NEW DISCOVERIES RAISE BIG QUESTIONS,” LIVE SCIENCE, FEBRUARY 2, 2024
Leder calls it “pre-art” but perhaps symbolic representation would be a useful term here. It seems to mean something but we are not sure what.
There are also the numerous stone “spheres” (spheroids) from 2 million years ago and onward.
What Are Cupules?
Science writer Tom Metcalfe also points to very ancient cupules, symmetric round holes made in rocks.
Were they all by-products of a routine activity? Or did they have a purpose of their own? Or was it perhaps a bit of both?
Archaeologist and psychologist Derek Hodgson told Metcalfe,
The ancient stone spheres, too, may be a sign that an interest in geometry was developing at that time, when early hominins experimented with symmetry to assess its merits, he said. But although this sense of symmetry is seen in early humans, it seems to be absent in some of our closest living relatives, Hodgson said. “Recent research on nonhuman primates, such as baboons, found that they were unable to identify symmetrical patterns… in contrast to modern humans, who found this task to be easy,” he said.
METCALFE, “NEW DISCOVERIES RAISE BIG QUESTIONS”
The fact that animals simply don’t do these things may be a sore point with some paleontologists. It would have been so satisfying to discover a long, slow, Darwinian progression of abstract ideas from the lemur through the chimpanzee to the human. Instead, we find humans of some type well over a million years ago apparently trying to shape a perfect sphere. As noted earlier, it is as if the human mind has no history.
The problem is, so much is lost that it is risky to draw conclusions. But what’s remarkable is how we humans have expressed ourselves with whatever is available.
And we keep learning new things about that. We learned last year that early humans hunted beavers in Europe 400,000 years ago. (The beavers’ bones show evidence of damage from tool use.) So little has really been explored that we can at least hope that new discoveries will shed light on the meanings of early human symbols.
Thursday, 8 February 2024
Life is ever from life?
What Is the Essence of Life?
One often answers this question by characterizing living organisms with attributes such as reproduction, metabolism, interacting with their environment, or even the processing of information. Insights into the complex biomolecular machinery within living cells that allow them to perform these functions have exploded exponentially in recent years. Despite these advances, the truth about the essence of life continues to elude any approach that ignores metaphysical aspects manifest in even the simplest biological forms.
The signs of a paradigm shift towards a teleological view of life have emerged even within the mainstream academy. As Mind Matters News explains:
It turns out that evolution is much more teleological than has been historically supposed. Not only has the prior evidence for the non-teleology of evolution mainly been overturned, but new research has increasingly focused on the teleological and teleonomic causes that underlie much of what shapes the direction of evolution.
“Goal-directed” behavior is unsupported within pure naturalism, but it would be expected if living things were designed by an intelligent agent. The behavior of living creatures appears to transcend a mechanistic version of teleology and exhibits qualities that are consistent with the essence of life as an imparted quality quite untraceable to physical origin.
Cells as “Sentient Beings”
Recently, microbiological research has come to entertain the notion that individual cells, in cooperation with other cells, possess a form of consciousness.
An earlier paper by Shapiro claims that “cells are sentient beings.”1
Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell–cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilise sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of ‘higher’ plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognise that even the smallest cells are sentient beings.
Shapiro further describes this growing recognition of cellular cognition as a Kuhnian paradigm shift to view life as “informatics.”
My own view is that we are witnessing a major paradigm shift in the life sciences in the sense that Kuhn (1962) described that process. Matter, the focus of classical molecular biology, is giving way to information as the essential feature used to understand how living systems work. Informatics rather than mechanics is now the key to explaining cell biology and cell activities.
Astrophysicist Adam Frank also describes life in terms of information usage:2
But there’s another and perhaps more all-encompassing way of understanding life that puts information front and center. In this view, what makes life special — what makes it different from all the other physical systems — is its ability to use information.
Recognizing Cellular Intelligence
Tufts University biologist Michael Levin identifies attributes of living cells that are foreign to a purely naturalistic way of thinking about life. He cites features such as goal-oriented cooperation, behaving cleverly, “problem-solving competencies,” and acting as “competent agents with preferences, with goals, with various abilities to pursue those goals, and other types of problem-solving capacities.”
Levin excuses researchers’ earlier failure to recognize cellular intelligence, saying “we really are very bad at recognizing intelligence in unconventional embodiments where our basic expectations strain against this idea that there could be intelligence in something extremely small or extremely large.” It’s an interesting irony that this blind spot applies to Levin himself, who along with many others, “really are very bad at recognizing” the signatures of intelligent design found pervasively throughout the biological realm.
The Source of Intelligence
If intelligence manifests even at the single-cell level, it becomes scientifically relevant to inquire as to its source. Some observers recognize intelligence as having a metaphysical origin. According to a recent ERG working group email:
[T]here appears to be a hierarchical organizational metaphysical masterpiece that unfolds as you pull back the curtains on cellular life.
Are we seeing that awareness and the rudiments of intelligence are an inherent accompaniment to life itself? James Barham comments on Shapiro’s statements about cellular intelligence with a discussion of various views of vitalism.
Historically, the term has most often been associated with the idea that a supernatural ‘life force’ impinges on living matter from the outside.
Barham offers the opinion that this historical view of vitalism would in principle debar scientific investigation of “the nature of the difference between the living state of matter and inorganic matter.” However, knowing, for example, that an advanced microelectronic device was made by intelligent designers from another place need not, even in principle, undercut scientific investigation of the device to see how it works. Likewise, we can learn the processes of biochemical engineering by studying cells, believing that they were intentionally designed, with arguably greater success than by studying them under the misguided presupposition of materialism.
Barham states that vitalism can also “refer to the claim that living things have properties and causal powers arising from within that are more than the sum of the properties and powers of the inanimate parts of which they are composed.” Such a position subscribes to an “emergentist” view of living systems that defies the traditional reductionistic approach to science.
My Reasons for Suspicion
As a physicist, I am suspicious of any claim of new and extraordinary properties of matter that are inconsistent with established and experimentally verified workings of the forces of nature. To claim that sophisticated “emergent properties” arise from collections of fundamental particles in specific complex arrangements, beyond what could be predicted by the laws of physics, is unwarranted and has no more scientific credibility than an appeal to magic.
What is scientifically credible is to claim that complex, functional arrangements of matter can result from the action of intelligent designers (my laptop is a case in point). The complexity of the simplest living organism far exceeds that of the most advanced human-engineered device. Above, life was described by its ability to use information. One of the traditionally recognized attributes of living things, that explicitly relies upon the creation, storage, retrieval, and usage of information, is their ability to reproduce (in theory, given the right conditions, forever). The origin of self-replication cannot be explained naturally and to describe it as an emergent property of matter violates mathematical analysis and known laws of nature.
Not All Things Are Possible Naturally!
However, to ascribe self-replication in living things to an intelligent designer is a conclusion consistent with our well-established understanding of nature’s abilities and limitations. If the origin of the physical process of self-replication exceeds the limits of nature, claiming that cellular intelligence arises naturally is clearly not a scientific conclusion.
It is well within the purview of scientific investigation for a scientist to draw a conclusion of “natural” or “unnatural.” For example, when astronomers observe a star near the center of our galaxy moving on an elliptical path with no visible object to cause such an orbit, they don’t conclude that some new law of motion has emerged, superseding Newton’s first law of motion. They conclude instead, consistent with established laws of physics, that since this star isn’t moving in a straight line, an external force must be acting on it, such as the gravity of a supermassive blackhole. Further applications of known laws of physics allow astronomers to accurately calculate the mass of this black hole3, even without being able to see it visibly.
A Dry Well
Naturalism is a dry well when it comes to explaining any of the attributes of cellular cognizance. Rather than recognizing such unphysical attributes as consistent with a view of God as the author of life, naturalism seems to be dredging up debris from pantheism and extending it to universal consciousness. Denyse O’Leary comments on the appeal and shortcomings of this view:
Panpsychism recognizes the reality of consciousness in the world of life. That is its strength. That is why it is slowly making inroads against materialism (physicalism, eliminationism, etc.). However, it avoids grappling with the reality of an Intelligence that is not and cannot be a part of nature. That is its weakness.
The strength of the intelligent design explanation for life lies in its full-orbed ability to address all aspects of life — its origin, complex biochemistry, information focus, consciousness, and ultimate purpose. Alternative views, when examined within the limits of nature, can only explain the “return to dust” of living organisms that have ceased to live, but they fail to explain the essence of life.
The inspiration and creativity of actual intelligence vs. Running of algorithmic programs by artificial intelligence.
Artificial General Intelligence: The Oracle Problem
In computer science, oracles are external sources of information made available to otherwise self-contained algorithmic processes. Oracles are in effect “black boxes” that can produce a solution for any instance of a given problem, and then supply that solution to a computer program or algorithm. For example, an oracle that could provide tomorrow’s price for a given stock could be used in an algorithm that today — with phenomenal returns — executes buy-and-sell orders for that stock. Of course, no such oracle actually exists (or if it does, it is a closely guarded secret).
The point of oracles in computer science is not whether they exist but whether they can help us study aspects of algorithms. Alan Turing proposed the idea of an oracle that supplies information external to an algorithm in his 1938 doctoral dissertation. Some oracles, like tomorrow’s stock predictor, cannot be represented algorithmically. Others can, but the problems they solve may be so computationally intensive that no real-world computer could solve them. The concept of an oracle is important in computer science for understanding the limits of computation.
“Sing, Goddess, of the Anger of Achilles”
Turing’s choice of the word “oracle” was not accidental. Historically, oracles have denoted sources of information where the sender of the information is divine and the receiver is human. The Oracle of Delphi stands out in this regard, but there’s much in antiquity that could legitimately count as oracular. Consider, for instance, the opening of Homer’s Iliad: “Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus.” The goddess here is one of the muses, presumably Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. In the ancient world, the value of artistic expression derived from its divine inspiration. Of course, prophecy in the Bible also falls under this conception of the oracular, as does real-time divine guidance of the believer’s life (as described in Proverbs 3:5–6 and John 16:13).
Many of us are convinced that we have received information from oracles that can’t be explained in terms of everyday communication among people or everyday operations of the mind. We use many words to describe this oracular flow of information: inspiration, intuition, creative insight, dreams, reverie, collective unconscious, etc. Sometimes the language used is blatantly oracular. Einstein, for instance, told his biographer Banesh Hoffmann, “Ideas come from God.” Because Einstein did not believe in a personal God (Einstein would sometimes say he believed in the God of Spinoza), Hoffmann interpreted Einstein’s remark metaphorically to mean, “You cannot command the idea to come. It will come when it’s good and ready.”
The Greatest Mathematician of His Age
Now granted, computational reductionists will dismiss such oracular talk as misleading nonsense. Really, all the information is there in some form already in the computational systems that make up our minds, and even though we are not aware of how the information is being processed, it is being processed nonetheless in purely computational and mechanistic ways. Clearly, this is what computational reductionists are bound to say. But the testimony of people in which they describe themselves as receiving information from an oracular realm needs to be taken seriously, especially if we are talking about people of the caliber of Einstein. Consider, for instance, how Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) described the process by which he made one of his outstanding mathematical discoveries. Poincaré was the greatest mathematician of his age (in 1905 he was awarded the Bolyai Prize ahead of David Hilbert). Here is how he described his discovery:
For fifteen days I strove to prove that there could not be any functions like those I have since called Fuchsian functions. I was then very ignorant; every day I seated myself at my work table, stayed an hour or two, tried a great number of combinations and reached no results. One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination. By the next morning I had established the existence of a class of Fuchsian functions, those which come from the hypergeometric series; I had only to write out the results, which took but a few hours. Then I wanted to represent these functions by the quotient of two series; this idea was perfectly conscious and deliberate, the analogy with elliptic functions guided me. I asked myself what properties these series must have if they existed, and I succeeded without difficulty in forming the series I have called theta-Fuchsian.
Just at this time I left Caen, where I was then living, to go on a geologic excursion under the auspices of the school of mines. The changes of travel made me forget my mathematical work. Having reached Coutances, we entered an omnibus to go some place or other. At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-Euclidean geometry. I did not verify the idea; I should not have had time, as, upon taking my seat in the omnibus, I went on with a conversation already commenced, but I felt a perfect certainty. On my return to Caen, for conscience’ sake I verified the result at my leisure.
Again, the computational reductionist would contend that Poincaré’s mind was in fact merely operating as a computer. Accordingly, the crucial computations needed to resolve his theorems were going on in the background and then just happened to percolate into consciousness once the computations were complete. But the actual experience and self-understanding of thinkers like Einstein and Poincaré, in accounting for their bursts of creativity, is very different from what we expect of computation, which is to run a computer program until it yields an answer. Humanists reject such a view of human creativity. Joseph Campbell, in The Power of Myth, offered this rejoinder to computational reductionism: “Technology is not going to save us. Our computers, our tools, our machines are not enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our true being.” Of course, artists of all stripes have from ages past to the present invoked muses of one form or another as inspiring their work.
A Clash of Worldviews?
Does this controversy over the role of oracles in human cognition therefore merely describe a clash of worldviews between a humanism that refuses to reduce our humanity to machines and a computational reductionism that embraces such a reduction? Is this controversy just a difference in viewpoints based on a difference in first principles? In fact, oracles pose a significant theoretical and evidential challenge to computational reductionism that goes well beyond a mere collision of worldviews. Computational reductionism faces a deep conceptual problem independent of any worldview controversy.
Computational reductionism faces an oracle problem. The problem may be described thus: Our most advanced artificial intelligence systems, which I’m writing about in this series about Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), require input of external information to keep them from collapsing in on themselves. This problem applies especially to large language models (LLMs) and their most advanced current incarnation, ChatGPT-4. I’m not talking here about the role of human agency in creating LLMs, which no one disputes. I’m not even talking here about all the humanly generated data that these neural networks ingest or all the subsequent training of these systems by humans. What I’m talking about here is that once all this work is done, these systems cannot simply be set loose and thrive on their own. They need continual propping up from our human intelligence. For LLMs, we are the oracles that make and continue to make them work.
The Death Knell for AGI
The need for ongoing human intervention in these systems may seem counterintuitive. It is also the death knell for AGI. Because if AGI is to succeed, it must surpass human intelligence, which means it must be able to leave us behind in the dust, learning and growing on its own, thriving and basking in its own marvelous capabilities. Like Aristotle’s unmoved mover God, who does not think about humanity or anything other than himself because it is in the nature of God only to think about the highest thing, and the highest thing of all is God. Thus, the Aristotelian God spends all his time contemplating only himself. A full-fledged AGI would do likewise, not deigning to occupy itself with lesser matters. (As an aside, AGI believers might take comfort in an AGI being so self-absorbed that it would not bother to destroy humanity. But to the degree that flesh-and-blood humans are a threat, or even merely an annoyance, to an AGI, it may be motivated to kill us all so as not to be distracted from contemplating itself!)
Unlike the Aristotelian God, LLMs do not thrive without human oracles continually feeding them novel information. There are sound mathematical reasons for this. The neural networks that are the basis for LLMs reside in finite dimensional vector subspaces. Everything in these spaces can therefore be expressed as a linear combination of finitely many basis vectors. In fact, they are simplexes and the linear combinations are convex, implying convergence to a center of mass, a point of mediocrity. When neural networks output anything, they are thus outputting what’s inherent in these predetermined subspaces. In consequence, they can’t output anything fundamentally new. Worse yet, as they populate their memory with their own productions and thereafter try to learn by teaching themselves, they essentially engage in an act of self-cannibalism. In the end, these systems go bankrupt because intelligence by its nature requires novel insights and creativity, which is to say, an oracle.
Research backs up this claim that LLMs run aground in the absence of oracular intervention, and specifically external information added by humans. This becomes clear from the abstract of a recent article titled “The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget“:
GPT-2, GPT-3(.5) and GPT-4 demonstrated astonishing performance across a variety of language tasks… What will happen to GPT-{n} once LLMs contribute much of the language found online? We find that use of model-generated content in training causes irreversible defects in the resulting models, where tails of the original content distribution disappear. We refer to this effect as Model Collapse and show that it can occur in Variational Autoencoders, Gaussian Mixture Models and LLMs. We build theoretical intuition behind the phenomenon and portray its ubiquity amongst all learned generative models. We demonstrate that it has to be taken seriously if we are to sustain the benefits of training from large-scale data scraped from the web. Indeed, the value of data collected about genuine human interactions with systems will be increasingly valuable in the presence of content generated by LLMs in data crawled from the Internet.
Think of It This Way
LLMs like ChatGPT are limited by a fixed finite number of dimensions, but the creativity needed to make these artificial intelligence models thrive requires added dimensions. Creativity is always orthogonal to the status quo, and orthogonality, by being at right angles with the status quo, always adds new dimensions. Oracles add such creativity. Without oracles, artificial intelligence systems become solipsistic, turning in on themselves, rehashing only what is in them already, and eventually going bankrupt because they cannot supply the daily bread needed to sustain them. AGI’s oracle problem is therefore real and damning.
But if AGI faces an oracle problem, don’t humans likewise face an oracle problem? Suppose AGIs require human oracles to thrive. Yet if oracles are so important for creativity, don’t humans need access to oracles as well? But how, asks the computational reductionist, does the external information needed for human intelligence to thrive get to us and into us? A purely mechanistic world is a solipsistic world with all its information internal and self-generated. On mechanistic principles, there’s no way for humans to have access to such oracles.
But why think that the world is mechanistic? Organisms, as we’ve seen, give no signs of being mechanisms. And physics allows for an informationally porous universe. Quantum indeterminacy, for instance, cannot rule out the input of information from transcendent sources. The simplest metaphor for understanding what’s at stake is the radio. If we listen to a symphony broadcast on the radio, we don’t think that the radio is generating the music we hear. Instead, the radio is a conduit for the music from another source. Humans are such conduits. And machines need to be such conduits (for ongoing human intelligent input) if they are to have any real value to us.
Tuesday, 6 February 2024
Monday, 5 February 2024
Darwinism is devolving?
Darwinists Devolve
One sign of a robust scientific theory is the quality of its most prominent proponents.
During its long history, Darwinian theory has had no shortage of gifted champions, starting with Charles Darwin himself.
Whatever else he was, Darwin was a masterful scientific communicator who collected and interpreted a vast array of observations from the natural world. One can’t read his writings without being duly impressed. Darwin’s civil and measured tone was calculated to persuade. Darwin was especially impressive in taking objections to his theory seriously and seeking to answer them.
Throughout the decades, Darwinism has had many other able scientific advocates. In our own lifetimes, there were Harvard biologists such as Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould.
And, of course, Oxford University boasted evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. A convincing popularizer and polemicist, Dawkins at least started out as a serious scientist who raised some of the right questions.
The Rise of Intelligent Design
But as the intelligent design movement gathered momentum in the 1990s, something interesting started to happen.
On the one hand, intelligent design scientists and philosophers started publishing a stream of increasingly sophisticated books and research critiquing modern Darwinism or arguing more generally for the detectability of purpose in nature. Think about books such as Darwin’s Black Box, The Design Inference, No Free Lunch, Icons of Evolution, What Darwin Didn’t Know, Nature’s Destiny, The Privileged Planet, Debating Design, The Edge of Evolution, Signature in the Cell, and Darwin’s Doubt. Or think about the research by Douglas Axe and Ann Gauger challenging the evolvability of new functions in proteins through Darwinian means.
On the other hand, as the case against Darwin was growing, the proponents of Darwinism seemed to be shrinking in stature.
Consider Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, author of the anti-ID polemic Finding Darwin’s God in 1999. Miller was a gifted debater, but his arguments all too often relied on citation bluffing and critiquing straw-man versions of the ideas of Michael Behe and others.
Francis Collins, in his book The Language of God, was even shallower in his critique. Indeed, if you read Collins’s book today, you’ll find that many of his arguments, including junk DNA, have been increasingly thrown overboard by mainstream science.
So who was left to champion the old time religion of Darwinism?
Passing the Baton — Down
Well, you had evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne at the University of Chicago, a loudmouth atheist. At least he was at a prestigious academic institution, and he could muster an argument if he had to.
You also had biologist P. Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota Morris. He too could debate, although the quality of what you got was decidedly second rate. His preferred mode of discourse was invective. As he once instructed his fellow evolutionists, they should “screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots” — by which he meant, of course, anyone who dared to criticize Darwin’s theory.
In short, serious defenders of Darwinism were getting scarcer.
The trend continued as more and more thoughtful intellectuals gave up their Darwinian faith. For example, in 2005 Nobel laureate physicist Robert Laughlin at Stanford University observed: “Evolution by natural selection… has lately come to function more as an anti-theory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong” (Laughlin, A Different Universe, 168).
In 2012, atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote a book with Oxford University Press, the subtitle of which declared: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Yale computer scientist David Gelernter wrote a piece in 2019 titled “Giving Up Darwin.”
In Search of a Theory
Meanwhile, on the Darwinian side, one of the world’s most prestigious scientific organizations, the Royal Society in England, convened an international conference of scientists in 2016 in search of some new theory of evolution, because of the growing understanding that traditional Darwinism didn’t adequately explain the most important advances in the history of life.
The remaining public champions of old-line Darwinism kept dwindling and devolving. Post-COVID, they seem to have become a truly endangered species.
So who is the most prominent public advocate of Darwin in America today?
Probably Dave Farina, aka “Professor Dave.”
Except Professor Dave isn’t actually a professor, and he doesn’t even have a PhD in a science or any other discipline. He makes his money off of YouTube videos. And many of his arguments consist of copious four-letter words, and I’m not speaking of the words “atom,” “gene,” or “cell.” Farina’s method is to attack anyone who disagrees with him as evil or an idiot — or both. More recently, Professor Dave has revealed himself to be a vile anti-Semite to boot.
Now people as nasty as non-Professor Dave can be rather depressing to deal with. But think about what it means that the most prominent defender of Darwin left is someone as small-minded and unserious as non-Professor Dave. What does it say when the most prominent defender in American society today is someone like THAT?
And what does it say when the prominent defenders of ID include people like Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Casey Luskin, Winston Ewert, Michael Behe, Marcos Eberlin, Guillermo Gonzalez, Ann Gauger, Emily Reeves, Brian Miller, Jonathan McLatchie, Douglas Axe, and many others?
I think it says the future does not belong to Darwinian materialism.
So take heart! As we approach another birthday of Charles Darwin on February 12, Darwinists may be devolving, but intelligent design proponents are progressing.
On the name Jesus: the Watchtower Society's commentary
Jesus,
(Jeʹsus) [Lat. form of the Gr. I·e·sousʹ, which corresponds to the Heb. Ye·shuʹaʽ or Yehoh·shuʹaʽ and means “Jehovah Is Salvation”].
Jewish historian Josephus of the first century C.E. mentions some 12 persons, other than those in the Bible record, bearing that name. It also appears in the Apocryphal writings of the last centuries of the B.C.E. period. It therefore appears that it was not an uncommon name during that period.
1. The name I·e·sousʹ appears in the Greek text of Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 and applies to Joshua, the leader of Israel following Moses’ death.—See JOSHUA No. 1.
2. An ancestor of Jesus Christ, evidently in his mother’s line. (Lu 3:29) Some ancient manuscripts here read “Jose(s).”—See GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST.
3. Jesus Christ.—See JESUS CHRIST.
4. A Christian, evidently Jewish, and fellow worker of Paul. He was also called Justus.—Col 4:11.
Ps. Note please there are many Jesuses, their are many Christs, but there is but one JEHOVAH, the only name in ALL of scripture EVER Referred to as Holy.
On distinguishing between God's personal name and His official titles: the Watchtower society's commentary..
In its articles on JEHOVAH, The Imperial Bible-Dictionary nicely illustrates the difference between ʼElo·himʹ (God) and JEHOVAH. Of the name JEHOVAH, it says: “It is everywhere a proper name, denoting the personal God and him only; whereas Elohim partakes more of the character of a common noun, denoting usually, indeed, but not necessarily nor uniformly, the Supreme. . . . The Hebrew may say the Elohim, the true God, in opposition to all false gods; but he never says the JEHOVAH, for JEHOVAH is the name of the true God only. He says again and again my God . . . ; but never my JEHOVAH, for when he says my God, he means JEHOVAH. He speaks of the God of Israel, but never of the JEHOVAH of Israel, for there is no other JEHOVAH. He speaks of the living God, but never of the living JEHOVAH, for he cannot conceive of JEHOVAH as other than living.”—Edited by P. Fairbairn, London, 1874, Vol. I, p. 856.
The same is true of the Greek term for God, The·osʹ. It was applied alike to the true God and to such pagan gods as Zeus and Hermes (Roman Jupiter and Mercury). (Compare Ac 14:11-15.) Presenting the true situation are Paul’s words at 1 Corinthians 8:4-6: “For even though there are those who are called ‘gods,’ whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords,’ there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him.” The belief in numerous gods, which makes essential that the true God be distinguished from such, has continued even into this 21st century.
Paul’s reference to “God the Father” does not mean that the true God’s name is “Father,” for the designation “father” applies as well to every human male parent and describes men in other relationships. (Ro 4:11, 16; 1Co 4:15) The Messiah is given the title “Eternal Father.” (Isa 9:6) Jesus called Satan the “father” of certain murderous opposers. (Joh 8:44) The term was also applied to gods of the nations, the Greek god Zeus being represented as the great father god in Homeric poetry. That “God the Father” has a name, one that is distinct from his Son’s name, is shown in numerous texts. (Mt 28:19; Re 3:12; 14:1) Paul knew the personal name of God, JEHOVAH, as found in the creation account in Genesis, from which Paul quoted in his writings. That name, JEHOVAH, distinguishes “God the Father” (compare Isa 64:8), thereby blocking any attempt at merging or blending his identity and person with that of any other to whom the title “god” or “father” may be applied.
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