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.
Sunday, 4 February 2024
Saturday, 3 February 2024
Resurrection of a dead body or a dead soul
Many are looking forward to the hope of a resurrection from the dead.The Abrahamic religions Judaism,Christianity and Islam all mention a resurrection from the dead at the end of the age.The confusion here though lies in the fact that most of the religious authorities in this bracket also teach that there is an immortal soul that survives the death of the body,so it begs the question if the soul(the real man) is immortal how can there be a resurrection.To counter this obvious difficulty the claim is made that the bible is speaking of a resurrection of the body not of the soul(the person),now my question is if the body is merely clothing for the soul how can we speak of its dying,for it was never truly alive,it was merely animated by the person,in the same way that our clothing is moved by our bodies as we work,play etc.,thus never having lived it cannot die and never having died it cannot be resurrected only reconstituted.
So the idea of man's being an immortal spirit soul trapped in a physical body is simply incompatible with the idea of a resurrection.But in as much as proponents of this theory appeal to the bible for support let us see what the bible has to has to say on the matter,is the person actually resurrected or merely clothed with the reconstituted remains of his former body.2Corinthians5:1NASB"For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down,we have a building from God,a house NOT made with hands,eternal in the heavens."
Note carefully this scriptural description of the resurrection.The remains of the earthly tent(body) are not to be reassembled it is to be replaced by the heavenly tent(body).So then it is the soul or person that is to be reconstituted with a new body,not the remains of the corpse.
Consider also
Note carefully this scriptural description of the resurrection.The remains of the earthly tent(body) are not to be reassembled it is to be replaced by the heavenly tent(body).So then it is the soul or person that is to be reconstituted with a new body,not the remains of the corpse.
Consider also
revelation20:4NASB"Then I saw thrones,and they sat on them,and judgment was given to them.And I saw the SOULS of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God,and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image...and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years."
Note it is the souls of the faithful that are spoken of as coming to life a thing that,would be impossible if these souls were immortal.
1Corinthians15:36NASB"You fool!That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies."
Now that ought to be self-evident.If the soul/person is an immortal spirit clothe with matter which it animates with its life,then neither the soul nor the matter which clothes it can be spoken of as dying and thus neither the soul nor the matter which clothes it can be resurrected.
Those who don't go beyond what is written,1Corinthians4:6,never have to wrestle with such contradictions.The scriptures are quite clear the human soul is mortal Ezekiel18:4 and immortality is gift from Jehovah through our lord and saviour Jesus Christ 2Timothy1:10
Those who don't go beyond what is written,1Corinthians4:6,never have to wrestle with such contradictions.The scriptures are quite clear the human soul is mortal Ezekiel18:4 and immortality is gift from Jehovah through our lord and saviour Jesus Christ 2Timothy1:10
Scientists' ruminations on ruminants' EQ
Researchers: Goats Can Read Basic Human Emotions
Readers may wonder at first whether this research was worth doing, but hang on. It turns out that goats can understand basic human emotions by voice alone, according to University of Hong Kong research, co-led by Prof Alan McElligott at City University of Hong Kong and Dr. Marianne Mason of London’s University of Roehampton:
In the experiment, goats listened to a series of voice playbacks expressing either a positive (happy) or a negative (angry) valence during the habituation phase, i.e., when the goat becomes accustomed to the human voice and valence, so they would respond less as the phase progressed. The recording was then switched from a positive to a negative valence (or vice versa) before being reversed.
“We predicted that if goats could discriminate emotional content conveyed in the human voice, they would dishabituate, looking faster and for longer towards the source of the sound, following the first shift in valence,” said Dr. Marianne Mason, University of Roehampton, UK.
MICHAEL GIBB, CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG, “RESEARCH SHOWS GOATS CAN TELL IF YOU ARE HAPPY OR ANGRY BY YOUR VOICE ALONE,” PHYS.ORG. THE PAPER IS OPEN ACCESS
When the emotional valence changed, 75 percent of the goats looked at the speaker for a longer time. That suggested that the goats had indeed sensed a change in emotional content.
Dogs, Horses, Livestock
Dogs and horses are well known to be sensitive to human emotions but, it can be argued, that is why humans form close relationships with them. What about livestock — animal species that we work with, and maybe live with, but are less likely to bond with? If they also can sense human emotions, that fact should be factored into their care, the researchers argue:
the results are essential for adding to our understanding of animal behaviour, welfare and emotional experiences, especially since goats and other livestock will hear the human voice in their daily lives. Negatively valenced voices, like angry ones, may cause fear in animals. In contrast, positive ones may be perceived as calming and may even encourage animals to approach and help with human-animal bonding.
CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG, “BY YOUR VOICE ALONE”
Reason and Moral Choice
It shouldn’t be very surprising if a wide range of animals can understand the most basic human emotional states, like contentedness vs. anger or maybe fear. After all, those are precisely the elements of the mind that we all share. What animals don’t understand are reason and moral choice, the elements we don’t share. The goat may sense that the human is angry but she does not think “I wonder if he is angry because the price of feed has gone up?” or “It’s not morally right for him to go around shouting at everyone like that! It’s not our fault if the feed price went up!” She responds to simple emotion because that is what she understands. In the same way, humans can understand, and even study, the animal emotions we share.
Interestingly, this distinction plays a role in arguments about the immortality of the soul. As philosopher Edward Feser writes, “ … it is because human beings are rational animals that our souls can survive the deaths of our bodies, since … rational or intellectual powers are essentially incorporeal.” The underlying assumption is that abstractions, ideas, and moral principles are immaterial (incorporeal); thus the aspect of our minds that apprehends them must be too. The basic emotions that we share with animals are, on that view, more rooted in physical nature.
One outcome of this view, of course, is that, as Christof Koch has complained, it meant that no dogs, including his beloved Purzel, go to heaven. However, C. S. Lewis had thought of a possible way around that problem. For more on that story, see “Do Any Dogs Go to Heaven? If So, Why?”
Ps. With all due respect to Mr. Feser,his comments perfectly illustrate how false religious ideas like reductive spiritualism short circuit clear thinking . Obviously emotions like joy,and anger are as immaterial as our moral sense. So to claim that the ability to experience/comprehend emotion is not as much evidence of a reductive spirit soul(if indeed there is such a thing) as possessing a moral sense is arbitrary. Another consideration is that at the beginning of our lives our moral sense is probably on the same level as a dog's or a cat's, is this evidence that this supposed reductive spirit soul is absent at that stage of development.
Why the big deal about JEHOVAH'S Name.: The Watchtower Society's Commentary.
Questions From Readers
How did the article “Let Your Name Be Sanctified” in The Watchtower of June 2020 clarify our belief regarding Jehovah’s name and his sovereignty?
In that article, we learned that there is really just one issue facing all intelligent creation: the sanctification of Jehovah’s great name. The issue of sovereignty—that is, Jehovah’s way of ruling is best—is a facet of the one great issue. Likewise, the issue of human integrity is another facet of that one great issue.
Why do we now emphasize that the greatest issue centers on Jehovah’s name and sanctifying it? Let us examine three reasons.
First, Satan attacked Jehovah’s name, or reputation, in the garden of Eden. Satan’s sly question to Eve implied that Jehovah was an ungenerous God who placed unreasonable restrictions on His subjects. Then Satan directly contradicted Jehovah’s words, in effect calling God a liar. So he slandered Jehovah’s name. He became “the Devil,” which means “slanderer.” (John 8:44) Because Eve believed Satan’s lies, she disobeyed God, rebelling against his sovereignty. (Gen. 3:1-6) To this day, Satan slanders God’s name, spreading lies about Jehovah as a Person. Those who believe such lies are more likely to disobey Jehovah. So to God’s people, the slander against Jehovah’s holy name is the ultimate injustice. It is the root cause of all the misery and wickedness in the world.
Second, for the good of all creation, Jehovah is determined to vindicate his name, clearing it of all reproach. That is of the utmost importance to Jehovah. He thus says: “I will certainly sanctify my great name.” (Ezek. 36:23) And Jesus made clear what should be a top priority in the prayers of all faithful servants of Jehovah when he said: “Let your name be sanctified.” (Matt. 6:9) The Bible again and again emphasizes the importance of glorifying Jehovah’s name. Consider just a few examples: “Give Jehovah the glory due his name.” (1 Chron. 16:29; Ps. 96:8) “Sing praises to his glorious name.” (Ps. 66:2) “I will glorify your name forever.” (Ps. 86:12) One of the times that Jehovah himself spoke from heaven occurred at the temple in Jerusalem, where Jesus said: “Father, glorify your name.” Jehovah, in turn, answered: “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”—John 12:28.a
Third, Jehovah’s long-range purpose is connected to his name, or reputation. Consider: After the final test that follows the Thousand Year Reign of Christ, what next? Will intelligent creation continue to be divided over the great issue, the sanctification of Jehovah’s name? To help us answer that question, let us recall the two related facets—human integrity and universal sovereignty. Will humans who have proved faithful continue to face the challenge of keeping their integrity? No. They will be perfect and fully tested. Everlasting life will lie ahead of them. Will universal sovereignty continue to be a focus of discussion, even division, among intelligent creation? No. The rightfulness and supremacy of Jehovah’s way of ruling will be established for all time. What, though, about Jehovah’s name?
Jehovah’s name will by then be completely sanctified, completely free of slander. However, it will continue to draw the attention of all faithful ones in heaven and on earth. Why? Because they will see Jehovah continue to do amazing things. Consider: Because Jesus will humbly turn all rulership over to Jehovah, God will “be all things to everyone.” (1 Cor. 15:28) After that, humans on earth will delight in “the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:21) And Jehovah will completely fulfill his long-range purpose to bring all intelligent creation in heaven and on earth together as one great, united family.—Eph. 1:10.
How will those developments affect Jehovah’s family in heaven and on earth? It stands to reason that we will feel a need—an ardent desire—to keep praising Jehovah’s beautiful name. The psalmist David was inspired to write: “May Jehovah God be praised . . . May his glorious name be praised forever.” (Ps. 72:18, 19) For all eternity, we will continue to find new and thrilling reasons to do that.
After all, Jehovah’s name represents everything about him. Mainly, then, his name reminds us of his love. (1 John 4:8) We will always remember that Jehovah created us out of love, that he provided the ransom sacrifice out of love, and that he demonstrated the righteousness of his way of ruling out of love. But we will continue to see how Jehovah showers his creation with his love. For all eternity, we will be moved to draw closer to him as our Father and to sing praises to his glorious name.—Ps. 73:28.
The Bible also shows that Jehovah acts “for the sake of his name.” For example, he leads his people, helps them, rescues them, forgives them, and preserves them alive—all for the sake of his great name, Jehovah.—Ps. 23:3; 31:3; 79:9; 106:8; 143:11.
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