The watchtower Society's commentary on "Death"

DEATH

The cessation of all functions of life, hence, the opposite of life. (De 30:15, 19) In the Bible the same original-language words for “death” or “dying” are applied to humans, animals, and plants. (Ec 3:19; 9:5; Joh 12:24; Jude 12; Re 16:3) However, for humans and animals the Bible shows the vital function of the blood in maintaining life, stating that “the soul of the flesh is in the blood.” (Le 17:11, 14; Ge 4:8-11; 9:3, 4) Both humans and animals are spoken of as ‘expiring,’ that is, ‘breathing out’ the breath of life (Heb., nish·math′ chai·yim′). (Ge 7:21, 22; compare Ge 2:7.) And the Scriptures show that death in humans and animals follows the loss of the spirit (active force) of life (Heb., ru′ach chai·yim′).—Ge 6:17, ftn; 7:15, 22; Ec 3:19; see SPIRIT.

From the Biblical viewpoint, what is death?

It is of interest to note the correspondency of these Biblical points with what is known scientifically of the death process. In humans, for example, when the heart stops beating, the blood ceases to circulate nourishment and oxygen (obtained by breathing) to the billions of body cells. However, The World Book Encyclopedia (1987, Vol. 5, p. 52b) pointed out: “A person whose heart and lungs stop working may be considered clinically dead, but somatic death may not yet have occurred. The individual cells of the body continue to live for several minutes. The person may be revived if the heart and lungs start working again and give the cells the oxygen they need. After about three minutes, the brain cells—which are most sensitive to a lack of oxygen—begin to die. The person is soon dead beyond any possibility of revival. Gradually, other cells of the body also die. The last ones to perish are the bone, hair, and skin cells, which may continue to grow for several hours.” Thus while the vital importance of breathing and of the blood in maintaining the active life-force (ru′ach chai·yim′) in the body cells is evident, at the same time it is also clear that it is not the cessation of breathing or of heartbeat alone but the disappearance of the life-force or spirit from the body cells that brings death as referred to in the Scriptures.—Ps 104:29; 146:4; Ec 8:8.

Cause of Death in Humans. The first reference to death in the Scriptures occurs at Genesis 2:16, 17 in God’s command to the first man concerning the eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, violation of which command would result in death. (See NW ftn.) However, death among animals as a natural process was evidently already in effect, since they are passed over completely in the Biblical presentation of the introduction of death into the human family. (Compare 2Pe 2:12.) The gravity of God’s warning about the death penalty for disobedience would therefore be understandable to his human son, Adam. Adam’s disobedience to his Creator brought death to him. (Ge 3:19; Jas 1:14, 15) Thereafter, Adam’s sin and its consequence, death, spread to all men.—Ro 5:12; 6:23.

Certain texts are, at times, brought forth as supposed evidence that physical death was intended as a natural eventuality for humans, even as for the animals; for example, the references to man’s life span as being ‘seventy or eighty years’ (Ps 90:10) and the apostle’s statement that “it is reserved for men to die once for all time, but after this a judgment.” (Heb 9:27) Nevertheless, all such texts were written after the introduction of death among mankind, and are applied to imperfect, sinful humans. The tremendous longevity of the men living prior to the Flood must at least be considered as reflecting a remarkable potential in the human body, surpassing that found in any animal even under the most ideal conditions. (Ge 5:1-31) The Bible unmistakably relates the entrance of death into the human family to Adam’s sin, as already shown.

Alienated from God by sin, mankind in general is said to be in “enslavement to corruption.” (Ro 8:21) This enslavement is due to the workings of sin in their bodies, bringing forth its corrupting fruit, and all persons not obedient to God are under the rule of sin as its slaves “with death in view.” (Ro 6:12, 16, 19-21) Satan is stated to have “the means to cause death.” (Heb 2:14, 15) He is called “a manslayer” (Joh 8:44), not necessarily because he kills directly but because he does so by deceit and seduction to sin, by inducing or stimulating wrongdoing that leads to corruption and death (2Co 11:3), and also by fathering murderous attitudes in the minds and hearts of men. (Joh 8:40-44, 59; 13:2; compare Jas 3:14-16; 4:1, 2.) Death is therefore presented, not as the friend of man, but as man’s “enemy.” (1Co 15:26) It is generally those in extreme or unbearable pain who are shown as desiring death.—Job 3:21, 22; 7:15; Re 9:6.

Condition of Human Dead. The dead are shown to be “conscious of nothing at all” and the death state to be one of complete inactivity. (Ec 9:5, 10; Ps 146:4) Those dying are described as going into “the dust of death” (Ps 22:15), becoming “impotent in death.” (Pr 2:18; Isa 26:14) In death there is no mention of God or any praising of him. (Ps 6:5; Isa 38:18, 19) In both the Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures, death is likened to sleep, a fitting comparison not only because of the unconscious condition of the dead but also because of the hope of an awakening through the resurrection. (Ps 13:3; Joh 11:11-14) The resurrected Jesus is spoken of as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death.”—1Co 15:20, 21; see HADES; SHEOL.

Whereas the ancient Egyptians and other peoples of pagan nations, and particularly the Grecian philosophers, were strong in their belief in the deathlessness of the human soul, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Greek Scriptures speak of the soul (Heb., ne′phesh; Gr., psy·khe′) as dying (Jg 16:30; Eze 18:4, 20; Re 16:3), needing deliverance from death (Jos 2:13; Ps 33:19; 56:13; 116:8; Jas 5:20), or as in the Messianic prophecy concerning Jesus Christ, being “poured out . . . to the very death” (Isa 53:12; compare Mt 26:38). The prophet Ezekiel condemns those who connived “to put to death the souls that ought not to die” and “to preserve alive the souls that ought not to live.”—Eze 13:19; see SOUL.

Thus, The Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. II, p. 1015), commenting on 1 Samuel 25:29, observes that “the idea of man as consisting of body and soul which are separated at death is not Hebrew but Greek.” (Edited by G. Buttrick, 1953) Similarly, Edmond Jacob, Professor of Old Testament at the University of Strasbourg, points out that, since in the Hebrew Scriptures one’s life is directly related with the soul (Heb., ne′phesh), “it is natural that death should sometimes be represented as the disappearance of this nephesh (Gen. 35:18; I Kings 17:21; Jer. 15:9; Jonah 4:3). The ‘departure’ of the nephesh must be viewed as a figure of speech, for it does not continue to exist independently of the body, but dies with it (Num. 31:19; Judg. 16:30; Ezek. 13:19). No biblical text authorizes the statement that the ‘soul’ is separated from the body at the moment of death.”—The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by G. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 802.

Redemption From Condemnation of Death. Psalm 68:20 states: “To Jehovah the Sovereign Lord belong the ways out from death.” By means of the sacrifice of his human life, Christ Jesus became God’s “Chief Agent” of life and salvation (Ac 3:15; Heb 2:10), and through him the abolishing of death is assured. (2Ti 1:10) By suffering death, Jesus ‘tasted death for every man’ and provided “a corresponding ransom for all.” (Heb 2:9; 1Ti 2:6) By means of Jesus’ “one act of justification,” a cancellation of the condemnation of death that sin brings now became possible, so that men of all sorts might enjoy “a declaring of them righteous for life.” (Ro 5:15, 16, 18, 19; Heb 9:27, 28; see DECLARE RIGHTEOUS; RANSOM.) Thus, concerning Jesus’ true followers, it could be said that they had, in effect, “passed over from death to life.” (Joh 5:24) Those disobeying the Son and not exercising love, however, ‘remain in death’ and under God’s condemnation. (1Jo 3:14; Joh 3:36) Those who want to be free from condemnation and free from “the law of sin and of death” must be guided by God’s spirit and produce its fruits, for “the minding of the [sinful] flesh means death.”—Ro 8:1-6; Col 1:21-23.

Jesus’ sacrificial course, terminating in his death and resurrection, was likened by him to baptism. (Mr 10:38, 39; Lu 12:50; compare Eph 4:9, 10.) The apostle Paul showed that Jesus’ anointed followers also would go through a similar baptism into death, their resurrection to heavenly glory ensuing. (Ro 6:3-5; Php 3:10, 11) In expressing his earnest desire to take up heavenly life, Paul showed that it was not death itself that was wanted by spirit-begotten Christians, nor to lie “naked” in death, but the ‘putting on’ of a heavenly body in order to be at “home with the Lord.” (2Co 5:1-8; compare 2Pe 1:13-15.) In the meantime, death “is at work” in them, while, by their ministry, they bring a message of life to those to whom they minister.—2Co 4:10-14; Pr 18:21; see BAPTISM (Baptism Into Christ Jesus, Into His Death).

Those who benefit from that ministry include the great crowd that have the prospect of surviving the great tribulation and enjoying eternal life on a paradise earth. Because of their faith in the sin-atoning value of Jesus’ sacrifice, they, too, come to have a clean standing before God.—1Jo 2:2; Re 7:9, 14.

Jesus speaks of himself as having “the keys of death and of Hades” (Re 1:18), and he uses these in releasing those held by death. (Joh 5:28, 29; Re 20:13) Jehovah God’s release of Jesus from Hades serves as a “guarantee to all men” of God’s future day of judgment or reckoning and provides assurance that there will be a resurrection of those in Hades. (Ac 17:31; 1Co 15:20, 21) Those inheriting God’s Kingdom in immortality are described as triumphing over death in their resurrection, so that its “sting” is overcome.—1Co 15:50, 54-56; compare Ho 13:14; Re 20:6.

The Destruction of Death. At Isaiah 25:8 the prophetic promise is made that God “will actually swallow up death forever, and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will certainly wipe the tears from all faces.” The sting producing death is sin (1Co 15:56), and thus all having sin and its accompanying imperfection have death working in their bodies. (Ro 7:13, 23, 24) The abolition of death, therefore, would require the abolition of that which produces death: sin. By the removal of the last trace of sin from obedient mankind, the authority of death will be abolished and death itself will be destroyed, and this is to be accomplished during the reign of Christ. (1Co 15:24-26) Thereby death, brought upon the human race by Adam’s transgression, “will be no more.” (Ro 5:12; Re 21:3, 4) Its destruction is figuratively likened to its being hurled into a “lake of fire.”—Re 20:14; see LAKE OF FIRE.

Second Death. “The lake of fire” into which death, Hades, the symbolic “wild beast” and “the false prophet,” Satan, his demons, and the persistent practicers of wickedness on earth are cast is shown to mean “the second death.” (Re 20:10, 14, 15; 21:8; Mt 25:41) Initially death resulted from and was passed on to mankind as a result of Adam’s transgression; hence “the second death” must be distinct from this inherited death. It is evident from the cited texts that there is no release possible from “the second death.” The situation of those in “the second death” corresponds to the outcome warned of in such texts as Hebrews 6:4-8; 10:26, 27; and Matthew 12:32. On the other hand, those represented as gaining “the crown of life” and having part in “the first resurrection” are free from any possibility of harm by the second death. (Re 2:10, 11) These, who are to reign with Christ, receive immortality (deathlessness) and incorruption and hence are beyond the “authority” of the second death.—1Co 15:50-54; Re 20:6; compare Joh 8:51.

Illustrative Use. Death is personified as a “king” ruling over mankind from the time of Adam (Ro 5:14), along with the rule of King Sin. (Ro 6:12) Thus, these kings are spoken of as exercising their “law” over those subject to their dominion. (Ro 8:2) With Christ’s coming and the provision of the ransom, undeserved kindness began exercising a superior kingship over those accepting God’s gift, “with everlasting life in view.”—Ro 5:15-17, 21.

Though men, disregarding God’s purposes, may try to make their own pact or covenant with King Death, it will fail. (Isa 28:15, 18) Like a horseman riding behind war and famine, death is pictured as bringing mass mortality to earth’s inhabitants.—Re 6:8; compare Jer 9:21, 22.

Those spiritually sick or distressed are described as “arriving at the gates of death” (Ps 107:17-20; compare Job 38:17; Ps 9:13), and those passing through such “gates” enter the figurative “house of meeting for everyone living” (Job 30:23; compare 2Sa 12:21-23), with its “interior rooms” (Pr 7:27) and a capacity for victims that is never completely filled. (Hab 2:5) Those going into Sheol are like sheep shepherded by death.—Ps 49:14.

“The pangs of death.” At Acts 2:24 the apostle Peter spoke of Jesus as being ‘loosed from the pangs of death, for it was not possible for him to continue to be held fast by it.’ The Greek word (o·din′) here translated “pangs” is elsewhere used to mean the pains of childbirth (1Th 5:3) but may also mean travail, pain, calamity, or distress generally. (Mt 24:8) Additionally, it was used by the translators of the Greek Septuagint in rendering the Hebrew word che′vel in texts where the evident meaning is “rope.” (2Sa 22:6; Ps 18:4, 5) A related Hebrew word means “birth pangs,” leading some commentators and lexicographers to suggest that the Greek term (o·din′) used by Luke at Acts 2:24 also had this double meaning, at least in Hellenistic Greek of apostolic times. Thus some translations render the phrase in this verse as “the bands [or bonds] of death.” (NC [Spanish]; Segond, Ostervald [French]) In numerous texts the danger of death is represented as reaching out to snare the threatened one (Pr 13:14; 14:27) with ropes that encircle him and bring him down into “the distressing circumstances of Sheol.” (Ps 116:3) Whereas other texts, already considered, show that there is no consciousness in death, and it is obvious that Jesus was not in any literal pain while dead, nonetheless death is presented as a bitter and distressing experience (1Sa 15:32; Ps 55:4; Ec 7:26) not only in the pain usually preceding it (Ps 73:4, 5) but in the loss of all activity and freedom that its paralyzing grip brings. So, it may be that it is in this sense that Jesus’ resurrection ‘loosed’ him from “the pangs of death,” freeing him from its distressing grip.

Change in spiritual state or condition. The death state is used to illustrate the spiritually dead condition of the world in general, so Jesus could speak of ‘the dead burying the dead,’ and the apostle Paul could refer to the woman living for sensual gratification as “dead though she is living.” (Lu 9:60; 1Ti 5:6; Eph 2:1) And since physical death discharges one from any debts or obligations existing up to that time (Ro 6:7), a Christian’s being freed or liberated from sin (Ro 6:2, 11) and from the condemnation of the Mosaic Law (Ro 7:2-6) is also likened to death, such one having ‘died’ to his former situation and obligations. The one figuratively dying in such a way, of course, is still alive physically and is now free to follow Christ as a slave to righteousness.—Ro 6:18-20; Ga 5:1.

The use of death to represent a change in one’s state or condition throws light on prophetic visions, such as that in the book of Ezekiel wherein God’s people in exile in Babylon are likened to dried-out bones and to persons dead and buried. (Eze 37:1-12) They were to “come to life” again and be settled on their own soil once more. (Eze 37:13, 14) Comparable illustrations are found at Revelation 11:3, 7-12 and Luke 16:19-31.

Fruit from a withered tree.

The internet:Friend,enemy,frenemy of freedom.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Beauty Evades the Clutches of Materialism

Evolution News & Views March 27, 2013 5:02 AM

Evolutionary materialists must believe, at some level, that the experience of beauty can be reduced to actions of neurons in the brain. This would bring beauty into the purview of neuroscience -- a subtopic known as neuroaesthetics -- that could be probed and explained with the tools of science. If the materialists are right, the Prince doesn't really love Cinderella because she is beautiful. She is beautiful to him because he loves her, and he loves her because certain neurons fire in response to a stimulus. Beauty is "merely" an experience in the physical brain, not an external reality.

Bevil R. Conway, a neurobiologist associated with Wellesley College and Harvard, and his colleague from Harvard's Department of Music, Alexander Rehding, evaluated the pretensions of neuroaesthetics to bring beauty under scientific analysis. Their conclusions were published in PLoS Biology in an open-access paper, "Neuroaesthetics and the Trouble with Beauty." They wrote as proponents of neuroaesthetics, not critics of it; but in the end, they found materialism wanting.

As with any good paper, they began with definitions and distinctions.

Here we consider what questions this new field is poised to answer. We underscore the importance of distinguishing between beauty, art, and perception -- terms often conflated by "aesthetics" -- and identify adjacent fields of neuroscience such as sensation, perception, attention, reward, learning, memory, emotions, and decision making, where discoveries will likely be informative. (Emphasis added.)

Conway and Rehding attempted to further clarify what is meant by beauty by providing a historical survey of attempts by various artists, poets and philosophers, beginning with Kant, to define beauty in its relation to the brain or mind. Gustav Fechner, an 18th-century psychophysicist, was one of the first to attempt building a science of beauty from the ground up by locating universal principles pleasure or displeasure elicited from art. "He would doubtless be interested by technological developments in neuroscience that have revealed the operations of neurons at cellular resolution and have enabled us to peer almost unnoticed into each other's working brains," the authors write. Whether those tools would lead to an understanding of beauty is another question.

The upshot of their historical survey, ending with modern neuroscience, is that no consensus exists for the definition of beauty:

While each of these theories is respected, not one is universally accepted. Partly this diversity of opinions is connected to the different functions that beauty holds within various philosophical systems, being sometimes viewed in connection with epistemology or with ethics. One goal of neuroaesthetics is to get to the bottom of the problem of artistic beauty. How can this be accomplished?

It would seem neuroscientists can't approach a subject they cannot define. Beauty is not just a "deeply moving" experience:

Experiences of beauty are often deeply moving, and their importance to the human condition invites a neuroscientific explanation. But while deep emotional reactions are often associated with beauty, being moved does not always indicate an instance of beauty. Consider hearing about a disaster, celebrating a sports victory, or smelling a long-forgotten scent. These experiences are better described as "sympathy," "elation," and "memory," rather than experiences of beauty. If neuroaesthetics is to be concerned specifically with beauty, it must draw distinctions between mechanisms for such disparate reactions.

Note the materialistic bias in that first sentence. They say that beauty, because of its importance, "invites a neuroscientific explanation." Why should that be, unless science has become scientism? What if science is incapable in principle of approaching matters of the inner mind?

Conway and Rehding emphasize that art does not equal beauty, pointing to a particularly grotesque example. Yet many neuroaesthetic studies assume they are one and the same. "Zeki, for instance, argues that the power of Alexander Calder's sculptures derives from the black-and-white moving parts, potent activators of the brain's motion-processing center." One cannot assume, though, that activating motion sensors in the brain equates with an experience of beauty. "An Alexander Calder sculpture may consist of optimal stimuli for the brain's motion center, but this aspect of the work does not make it beautiful," they admit. Furthermore, beauty varies across cultures, and even within cultures over time. One cannot universalize one's own experiences of beauty to the rest of mankind.

Nevertheless, since neuroscience can identify areas of the brain involved with pain, pleasure, identification of external phenomena, evaluation of options, memory, emotions, and decision-making, the authors feel that scientific findings along these lines can provide a heuristic guide for neuroaesthetics.

Below we argue that a successful neuroaesthetics will include the study of each of these stages of processing as they relate to handling, encoding, and generating aesthetic experiences, rather than an attempt to derive a single universal neural underpinning of what constitutes beauty.

Even so, the play's the thing -- not the activity of the stagehands. Let's see how far their hopeful heuristic takes them. It isn't long before Darwin enters, stage right:

One approach commonly included under the umbrella of neuroaesthetics involves examining art objects in museums. Here the complication of establishing "beauty" is obviated by treating artworks as products of a massive empirical experiment. By analogy with evolutionary theory, the assumption is that the tiny number of works that survive the selective pressures exerted by collectors, cultural institutions, and fads are enriched for the strength of their effects on the nervous system. Using this approach, studies have uncovered various artistic strategies reflecting fundamental operations of the neural mechanisms for sensation and perception.

That analogy with natural selection was poised to fail. Art critics use intelligent design, not unguided, mindless processes, to make their selections. The authors admit as much: "It is an open question whether an analysis of artworks, no matter how celebrated, will yield universal principles of beauty." They point to researchers who tried to identify universal principles of attraction with the Golden Ratio, or with locations of eyes in paintings, or female body ratios. Nothing there, either: "Depictions of reproductive fitness can be sexually appealing and contribute to aesthetic appeal, but such depictions are, again, neither necessary nor sufficient for beauty." In short, they find studies of responses to art too subjective for a science of neuroaesthetics.

Having cleared the field of unproductive pathways, Conway and Rehding looked to the tools of modern neuroscience, such as functional MRI (fMRI). What lights up in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) during an experience of beauty? Can that help construct a science of beauty from the ground up? Before "brandishing" fMRI as science's skeleton key, researchers need to overcome several experimental challenges.

Four experimental-design challenges surface. First, the options are necessarily restricted, and might not include a truly beautiful choice -- the study design tests preferences, not beauty. Second, different subjects likely interpret the instructions in radically different ways. Third, the use of different stimulus sets in different subjects makes it difficult to control for differences in low-level stimulus features, which likely drive different patterns of neural activity. And fourth, the experiment requires that a given object retain a fixed preferred status, and one that is not modulated by context, which we know is unlikely. As Fechner showed, mere exposure changes judgments of preference in favor of the familiar option. Brandishing fMRI does not circumvent these problems.

And that's just for starters. More serious conceptual challenges remain -- some that make fMRI answer different questions than the one of interest:

Moreover, fMRI has cripplingly low spatial and temporal resolution, and the relationship between the measured signal and underlying neural activity is indirect. In addition, fMRI experiments often only report regions that show differential activation between pairs of conditions (e.g., response to beautiful greater than response to ugly); such an analysis is misleading in situations in which all brain regions show significant but slightly different levels of activity for the different conditions, as is likely the case in considerations of beauty. Brain imaging provides a blurry, although seductively glossy, view of brain function. And by finessing a definition of beauty, these sorts of studies sidestep what is at the heart of our interest in beauty: the connection between physical stimuli, specifically those crafted by human hands, and our response.

When considering the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), more challenges surface. Beauty involves more than the mOFC, and other experiences besides beauty activate the mOFC. Relating the experience of beauty to the mOFC is, therefore, another source of blurriness: "Ascribing responses of the mOFC to experiences of beauty is premature; many experiences depend on these processes without being beautiful." For empirical support, consider that strokes in the mOFC do not necessarily correlate with an inability to experience beauty; in some instances, they even promote it.

Facing challenges on every side, Conway and Rehding seek to identify "What Questions Can Neuroaesthetics Answer?" Here, in one of their most potent paragraphs, they pose cogent questions, asking whether "rational reductionist" science is even capable in principle of explaining the experience of beauty.

Inspired by the power of polling, in 1994 a pair of artists, Komar and Melamid, set out to determine "USA's most wanted painting." The painting was formulated on the basis of a thousand people's responses to questions of their favorite color, favorite setting, and favorite subjects. The resulting painting is absurd, showing that a composition with everything that people find beautiful does not make a beautiful painting. Rational reductionist approaches to the neural basis for beauty run a similar risk of pushing the round block of beauty into the square hole of science and may well distill out the very thing one wants to understand. There is a popular conception of beauty as a fixed attribute of objects, a notion that much of current neuroaesthetics depends upon. But there is a distinction between abstract notions of beauty and our experience of it--consider a specific example in which you have experienced beauty. Beauty is an analog, not binary, condition that varies in complex ways with exposure, context, attention, and rest--as do most perceptual responses. In trying to crack the subjective beauty nut with scientific, objective information, we also run the risk of fueling a normative, possibly dangerous campaign through which science is required to valorize our experience. Should we deny someone's experience of beauty if the mOFC is not activated? Obviously not. But the question underscores the danger of reverse inference, a technique used in brain-imaging studies which posits that activation of a brain region indicates the presence of a stimulus. Reverse inference is almost always invalid because single brain structures almost never regulate single specific experiences.

Wow! That's devastating. Add to it the fact that there is no universal definition of beauty, and all that is left is a series of questions -- not answers.

Insofar as beauty is a product of the brain, correlations between brain activity and experiences of beauty must exist. At what spatial scale, and within what brain regions, do we find these correlations? What functions do the brain regions implicated serve in other behaviors? What signals during development and experience are responsible for wiring up these circuits? And perhaps most critically, how does the activity of these circuits integrate across modalities and time to bring about the dynamic, elusive quality of beauty? To address these questions, the field is thirsty for carefully conducted experiments that distinguish responses to beauty from those involved in more general value-based decision tasks such as self-evaluation or selecting a juice for lunch. But any such experiments are caught on the same stubborn thorn -- the lack of a cogent, universally accepted definition of beauty. One should not always demand a precise definition to make headway, but it might turn out that the philosophers' disagreement is symptomatic: maybe there is no universal concept beyond the human capacity to experience beauty.

In their final two paragraphs, Conway and Behding basically "give up" on the idea that science can explain beauty. All that remains is for neuroscientists to perform the kind of experiments done with monkey brains: use fMRI to study attention, decision-making, and reward. Maybe some of those brain regions correlate with the experience of beauty, but science might never know, the two wishful materialists confess.

There may well be a "beauty instinct" implemented by dedicated neural machinery capable of producing a diversity of beauty reactions, much as there is language circuitry that can support a multitude of languages (and other operations). A need to experience beauty may be universal, but the manifestation of what constitutes beauty certainly is not. On the one hand, a neuroaesthetics that extrapolates from an analysis of a few great works, or one that generalizes from a single specific instance of beauty, runs the risk of missing the mark. On the other, a neuroaesthetics comprising entirely subjectivist accounts may lose sight of what is specific to encounters with art. Neuroaesthetics has a great deal to offer the scientific community and general public. Its progress in uncovering a beauty instinct, if it exists, may be accelerated if the field were to abandon a pursuit of beauty per se and focus instead on uncovering the relevant mechanisms of decision making and reward and the basis for subjective preferences, much as Fechner counseled. This would mark a return to a pursuit of the mechanisms underlying sensory knowledge: the original conception of aesthetics.

C.S. Lewis fans will find strong support for his "argument from joy" in the consternation of these materialists. An experience of joy (or delight in something beautiful) transcends the merely physical and enters the realm of the numinous -- realities that surpass scientific comprehension.

Darwinism's continuing search for a free lunch(re:information) examined.

Schooled again:The original technologist continues to put Darwinists in their place.

Phys.org: Specialized Retinal Cells Are a "Design Feature," Showing that the Argument for Suboptimal Design of the Eye "Is Folly"

Casey Luskin August 8, 2014 4:57 AM

In 2010, the pro-ID website Access Research Network (ARN) posted its Top Ten Darwin and Design Science News Stories of the year, and its No. 1 story was a paper in Physical Review Letters, "Retinal Glial Cells Enhance Human Vision Acuity." Why was this article ARN's top story for the year? Because it found that special "Müller glia cells" sit over the retina, acting like fiber-optic cables to channel light through the optic nerve wires directly onto the photoreceptor cells.

This refuted the old objection to intelligent design that the vertebrate eye is "poorly designed" because the optic nerve extends over the retina instead of going out the back of the eye. These cells ensure that there is no loss of visual acuity due to the presence of the optic nerve, as the paper found, revealing the retina "as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images." As New Scientist put it at the time, these funnel-shaped cells "act as optical fibres, and rather than being just a workaround to make up for the eye's peculiarities, they help filter and focus light, making images clearer and keeping colours sharp." We also reported on this here.

Now a new paper in Nature Communications, "Müller cells separate between wavelengths to improve day vision with minimal effect upon night vision," has expanded upon this research, further showing the eye's optimal design. According to the paper, Müller cells not only act as optical fibers to direct incoming light through the optic nerve, but are fine-tuned to specific wavelengths to ensure that light reaches the proper retinal cells. From the Abstract:

Vision starts with the absorption of light by the retinal photoreceptors -- cones and rods. However, due to the 'inverted' structure of the retina, the incident light must propagate through reflecting and scattering cellular layers before reaching the photoreceptors. It has been recently suggested that Müller cells function as optical fibres in the retina, transferring light illuminating the retinal surface onto the cone photoreceptors. Here we show that Müller cells are wavelength-dependent wave-guides, concentrating the green-red part of the visible spectrum onto cones and allowing the blue-purple part to leak onto nearby rods. This phenomenon is observed in the isolated retina and explained by a computational model, for the guinea pig and the human parafoveal retina. Therefore, light propagation by Müller cells through the retina can be considered as an integral part of the first step in the visual process, increasing photon absorption by cones while minimally affecting rod-mediated vision.

(Amichai M. Labin, Shadi K. Safuri, Erez N. Ribak, and Ido Perlman, "Müller cells separate between wavelengths to improve day vision with minimal effect upon night vision," Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5319 (July 8, 2014).)

The paper presents Müller cells as a direct answer to the view that the vertebrate eye has a suboptimal wiring:

[T]he mammalian retina and the peripheral retina of humans and primates are organized in a seemingly reverse order with respect to the light path. This arrangement places the photoreceptors, responsible for light absorption, as the last cells in the path of light, rather than the first. Therefore, the incident light must propagate through five reflecting and scattering layers of cell bodies and neural processes before reaching the photoreceptors. This 'inverted' retinal structure is expected to cause blurring of the image and reduction in the photon flux reaching the photoreceptors, thus reducing their sensitivity. It has been recently reported that retinal Müller cells act as light guides serving to transfer light across the retina, from the vitreo-retinal border towards the photoreceptors.

How do Müller cells accomplish this feat? The article continues: "A single Müller cell collects light at the vitreo-retinal surface from an extended retinal region, and guides it onto one coupled cone, located at its distal end." The shape of the Müller cells -- wide at the top where it collects light, and narrow at the bottom where it delivers light to the rods and cones -- presents a potential optimization tradeoff between day vision (which depends more on efficient light transmission to the rods) and night vision (which depends more on efficient light transmission to the rods).

They then ask an engineering question: "Can this cost-benefit optimization problem between day vision and night vision be solved, without significantly impeding one or the other?" They find that the retina is optimized to solve this problem:

[H]uman Müller cells separate white light according to its wavelengths; medium- and long-wavelength light is concentrated onto cones and short-wavelength light leaks to illuminate nearby rods. Next, we show similar theoretical calculations for the guinea pig Müller cells and describe imaging experiments in the isolated guinea pig retina, to find remarkable agreement between the experimental results and the computational model. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the wave guiding properties of Müller cells are wavelength-dependent in a manner that improves cone-mediated vision while minimally impeding rod-mediated vision.

The paper explains that Müller cells give the retina a specialized architecture to foster light collection: "We could clearly identify distinct light guiding tubes across most of the retinal depth, spanning the retina from the retinal surface down to just above the photoreceptors. The only retinal structures that fit these light-guiding tubes are the Müller cells." They conclude:

The findings presented here indicate that the spectral separation of light by Müller cells provides a mechanism to improve cone-mediated day vision, with minimal interference with rod-mediated night vision. This is achieved by wavelength sorting of incident light by the Müller cells. Light of relevant wavelengths for cone visual pigments is directed towards the cones, while light of wavelengths more suitable for rod vision is allowed to leak outside the Müller cells towards the surrounding rods. This is a novel mechanism that needs to be considered when visual phenomena concerning cone- and rod-mediated vision are analysed.

The implications of these findings have not been lost on expert optics commentators. A striking article at Phys.org about this new paper, Fiber optic light pipes in the retina do much more than simple image transfer," reflects a keen awareness of the debate over whether the vertebrate eye is suboptimally designed. It concludes that the retinal architecture, as it now stands revealed, settles the debate. In the words of Phys.org, the notion that the vertebrate eye is suboptimally wired "is folly." Why? Because "Having the photoreceptors at the back of the retina is not a design constraint, it is a design feature." Here's the full passage from the article:

Having the photoreceptors at the back of the retina is not a design constraint, it is a design feature. The idea that the vertebrate eye, like a traditional front-illuminated camera, might have been improved somehow if it had only been able to orient its wiring behind the photoreceptor layer, like a cephalopod, is folly. Indeed in simply engineered systems, like CMOS or CCD image sensors, a back-illuminated design manufactured by flipping the silicon wafer and thinning it so that light hits the photocathode without having to navigate the wiring layer can improve photon capture across a wide wavelength band. But real eyes are much more crafty than that.

A case in point are the Müller glia cells that span the thickness of the retina. These high refractive index cells spread an absorptive canopy across the retinal surface and then shepherd photons through a low-scattering cytoplasm to separate receivers, much like coins through a change sorting machine. A new paper in Nature Communications describes how these wavelength-dependent wave-guides can shuttle green-red light to cones while passing the blue-purples to adjacent rods. The idea that these Müller cells act as living fiber optic cables has been floated previously. It has even been convincingly demonstrated using a dual beam laser trap. In THIS case (THIS, like in Java programming meaning the paper just brought up) the authors couched this feat as mere image transfer, with the goal just being to bring light in with minimal distortion. (Emphasis added.)

Take special note of the sentences I've put in bold at the end of the last paragraph. These recent discoveries about the retina were made by proposing that Müller cells behave like "living fiber optic cables" that have a "goal" to "bring light in with minimal distortion." This is an example ofsystems-biology-thinking, as I described it here recently, where you assume that biological systems function much like goal-directed technology, and then reverse engineer a system to determine how it works. Such teleological thinking is once again bearing fruit in biology.

But the Phys.org article explains that these Müller cells aren't just passive cables that transfer images -- they are dynamic structures that can adjust to the amount of incoming light to avoid distorting the image:

In considering not just the classical photoreceptors but the entire retina itself as a light-harvesting engine, it seems prudent to also regard its entire synaptic endowment as a molecular-scale computing volume. In other words, when you have many cells that have no axons or spikes to speak of, that can completely refigure their fine structure within a few minutes to handle changing light levels, every synapse appears as an essential machine that percolates information as if at the Brownian scale, or even below.

[...]

Most incredibly, like the wings of a swallow, the retina more-or-less works right out of the box, even if it has not seen any exercise. In seeking to understand how it then further refines its delicate structure we should perhaps not overlook the pervasive organizing influence of the incoming photons themselves. Now that it is becoming abundantly clear that the whole works can "feel" them, the next question to answer is how.

A Darwinian paradigm assumes that biological systems are cobbled together haphazardly by natural selection over eons of unguided descent with modification. Compare that paradigm with one that recognizes intelligent design and that accordingly predicts biological systems are built from the top down. In investigating the evidence of biology, ID expects to find goal-directed structures that are organized much like human technology -- except better, it often seems. Which model seems the more appropriate here?

The Watchtower Society's commentary on holy angels

ANGEL

Both the Hebrew mal·ʼakh′ and the Greek ag′ge·los literally mean “messenger.” From the first book of the Bible to the last, these words occur nearly 400 times. When spirit messengers are indicated, the words are translated “angels,” but if the reference definitely is to human creatures, the rendering is “messengers.” (Ge 16:7; 32:3; Jas 2:25; Re 22:8; see MESSENGER.) However, in the highly symbolic book of Revelation certain references to ‘angels’ may apply to human creatures.—Re 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14.

Angels are sometimes termed spirits; that which is spirit is invisible and powerful. Thus we read: “A spirit came out and stood before Jehovah”; “Are they not all spirits for public service?” (1Ki 22:21; Heb 1:14) Having invisible spiritual bodies, they make their abode “in the heavens.” (Mr 12:25; 1Co 15:44, 50) They are also termed “sons of the true God,” “morning stars,” and “holy myriads” (or “holy ones”).—Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; De 33:2.

Not being creatures that marry and reproduce their own kind, the angels were individually created by Jehovah through his firstborn Son, “the beginning of the creation by God.” (Mt 22:30; Re 3:14) “By means of him [this firstborn Son, the Word] all other things were created in the heavens . . . the things invisible . . . Also, he is before all other things and by means of him all other things were made to exist.” (Col 1:15-17; Joh 1:1-3) The angels were created long before man’s appearance, for at the ‘founding of the earth’ “the morning stars joyfully cried out together, and all the sons of God began shouting in applause.”—Job 38:4-7.

As for the number of the angelic hosts of heaven, Daniel said he saw “a thousand thousands that kept ministering to [God], and ten thousand times ten thousand that kept standing right before him.”—Da 7:10; Heb 12:22; Jude 14.

Order and Rank. As with the visible creation, so also in the invisible realm there is order and rank among the angels. The foremost angel, both in power and authority, is Michael, the archangel. (Da 10:13, 21; 12:1; Jude 9; Re 12:7; see ARCHANGEL; MICHAEL No. 1.) Because of his preeminence and his being called “the great prince who is standing in behalf of the sons of [God’s] people,” he is presumed to be the angel that led Israel through the wilderness. (Ex 23:20-23) Ranking very high among the angels in privileges and honor are the seraphs. (Isa 6:2, 6; see SERAPHS.) More frequently (some 90 times), the Scriptures mention the cherubs, and from the description of their duties and responsibilities it is apparent that they, too, hold a special position among the angels. (Ge 3:24; Eze 10:1-22; see CHERUB No. 1.) Then there is the great body of angelic messengers who serve as a means of communication between God and man. However, they do more than simply relay messages. As agents and deputies of the Most High God, they serve as responsible executioners of the divine purpose, be it protection and deliverance of God’s people or destruction of the wicked.—Ge 19:1-26.

Personality. Some may deny distinct personality of individual angels, claiming they are impersonal forces of energy dispatched to accomplish the will of God, but the Bible teaches otherwise. Individual names imply individuality. The fact that two of their names, Michael and Gabriel, are given establishes the point sufficiently. (Da 12:1; Lu 1:26) The lack of more names was a safeguard against giving undue honor and worship to these creatures. Angels were dispatched by God as agents to act in his name, not in their own name. Hence, when Jacob asked an angel for his name, he refused to give it. (Ge 32:29) The angel that approached Joshua, when asked to identify himself, replied only that he was “prince of the army of Jehovah.” (Jos 5:14) When Samson’s parents asked an angel for his name, he withheld it, saying: “Just why should you ask about my name, when it is a wonderful one?” (Jg 13:17, 18) The apostle John attempted to worship angels and was twice rebuked: “Be careful! Do not do that! . . . Worship God.”—Re 19:10; 22:8, 9.

As personalities, angels have the power to communicate with one another (1Co 13:1), the ability to talk various languages of men (Nu 22:32-35; Da 4:23; Ac 10:3-7), and the thinking ability with which to glorify and praise Jehovah (Ps 148:2; Lu 2:13). It is true that angels are sexless, because Jehovah made them so, not because they are impersonal forces. Angels are generally represented as males, and when materializing it was always in the male form, because God and his Son are spoken of as males. However, when certain materialized angels indulged in the pleasure of sex in the days of Noah, they were expelled from Jehovah’s heavenly courts. Here was a display of angelic individuality, for, like humankind, they too are free moral agents, with the power of personal choice between right and wrong. (Ge 6:2, 4; 2Pe 2:4) By personal choice, hordes of angels joined Satan in his rebellion.—Re 12:7-9; Mt 25:41.

Powers and Privileges. Since God created man “a little lower than angels” (Heb 2:7), it follows that angels have a greater mental capacity than man. They are superhuman in power too. “Bless Jehovah, O you angels of his, mighty in power, carrying out his word.” Angelic knowledge and power were displayed when two angels brought flaming destruction upon Sodom and Gomorrah. A single angel killed 185,000 of the Assyrian army.—Ps 103:20; Ge 19:13, 24; 2Ki 19:35.

Angels too can travel at tremendous speeds, far exceeding the limits of the physical world. Thus when Daniel was praying, God dispatched an angel to answer his prayer; and the angel arrived within moments, even before the prayer was concluded.—Da 9:20-23.

But for all their higher mental and spiritual powers, angels have their limitations. They did not know the “day and hour” when this system of things would be swept away, Jesus said. (Mt 24:36) They take a keen interest in the outworking of Jehovah’s purposes, yet there are some things they do not understand. (1Pe 1:12) They rejoice at the repentance of a sinner, and they watch the “theatrical spectacle” furnished by Christians here on the world stage of public activity. They also observe the proper example of Christian women who wear a sign of authority upon their heads.—Lu 15:10; 1Co 4:9; 11:10; see IMMORTALITY(Kingdom Heirs Granted Immortality).

As Jehovah’s ministers, the angels have enjoyed many privileges during the aeons of passing time. Angels ministered on behalf of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Peter, Paul, and John, to mention but a few. (Ge 22:11; 31:11; Jos 5:14, 15; Isa 6:6, 7; Da 6:22; Zec 1:9; Ac 5:19, 20; 7:35; 12:7, 8; 27:23, 24; Re 1:1) Their messages contributed toward the writing of the Bible. In Revelation angels are mentioned far more times than in any other Bible book. Innumerable angels were seen around the great throne of Jehovah; seven blew the seven trumpets, while another seven poured out the seven bowls of God’s anger; an angel flying in midheaven had “everlasting good news”; but another proclaimed, “Babylon the Great has fallen.”—Re 5:11; 7:11; 8:6; 14:6, 8; 16:1.

Support of Christ and followers. From beginning to end, the holy angels of God followed the earthly sojourn of Jesus with extreme interest. They announced his conception and birth, and they ministered to him after the 40-day fast. An angel strengthened him when he prayed in Gethsemane on his final night as a human. When the mob came to arrest him, he could have called for no less than 12 legions of angels had he chosen to do so. Angels also announced his resurrection and were present at his ascension into heaven.—Mt 4:11; 26:53; 28:5-7; Lu 1:30, 31; 2:10, 11; 22:43; Ac 1:10, 11.

Thereafter, God’s spirit messengers continued ministering to his servants on earth, even as Jesus promised: “Do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father.” (Mt 18:10) “Are they not all spirits for public service, sent forth to minister for those who are going to inherit salvation?” (Heb 1:14) No longer do these mighty angelic ones appear visibly in behalf of Jehovah’s servants on earth, as when they delivered the apostles from prison; nevertheless, God’s servants are assured of the ever-present, invisible protecting armies, as real as those that surrounded the prophet Elisha and his servant. “He will give his own angels a command concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.” Yes, “the angel of Jehovah is camping all around those fearing him, and he rescues them.”—Ps 91:11; 34:7; Ac 5:19; 2Ki 6:15-17.

Angels are further shown accompanying Jesus Christ when he comes for judgment, separating “the wheat” from “the weeds” and “the sheep” from “the goats.” Angels joined with Michael in his war on the dragon and the demons at the birth of God’s Kingdom in heaven. They will also support the King of kings in fighting the war of the great day of God the Almighty.—Mt 13:41; 25:31-33; Re 12:7-10; 19:14-16.