I believe it's both just like on earth we have substance in our plants and mushrooms that do the same thing like dmt and such except these people of the future accept the spirits of the spice it let it expand there consciousness.
Reminds me of an exchange from the X-Files episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose": CLYDE BRUCKMAN: How can I see the future if it didn't already exist? MULDER: Then if the future is written, then why bother to do anything? CLYDE BRUCKMAN: Now you're catching on.
Prescience works in a sci-fi setting IMO. The ability humans have that other species don't is the ability to recall the past or project possible futures on cue, without outside stimuli (though it helps). So prescience is an extension of that normal human ability, which would seem magical to other species without that ability, if they could comprehend it.
@@gainmelk Other animals seemingly have less control over themselves than humans so. So, if Paul was to have the power of the Kwisatz Haderach and could not control himself, then he would be a menace. The Reverend Mother kill him to protect everyone else.
Educated probability projection is not the same as prescience. One is what a mentat does with logic. The other is what spice does to the neural system. Mentat analytics: This futbol team is gonna win because of this player, their stats, win rates, who their playing etc. Vs Prescience: This futbol teams gonna win. How do you know? Just watch. A mentat with prescience like the kwitsach haderach, however is on another level entirely.
@@AlmostEthical the final solution is the end result. It can be arrived at threw calculations or intuitions. Calculations are lines of logic. Mentats develop this. Intuition is a measurement of interacting wave field functions. Prescience uses this. The final solution remains unaffected by how its arrived at. I would agree, to certain degrees.
I have seen this analyzed several times, and none of them mention something from the first chapter of the first book. Paul is trained as a Mentat. Thufir states that the accuracy of a Mentat's predictions are limited by the information provided. Paul gains access to tens of thousands of years of ancestral memory. He doesn't see the future through some mystical magical process. He ***calculates*** it.
Paul was only trained to a point when the trainee has to be made aware he's being trained and must make an informed decision to proceed with training. War prevented Paul from further training. How much he learned about being a mentat from "other memory" is a guess. How much more training Paul would have needed to become a mentat is a guess. But, Paul certainly did not finish traditional mentat training.
Love your videos. I'm glad you didn't go for the cliché "Paul is actually the bad guy" it's become so common. The responsibility of prescience is a crushing weight on even the most benevolent person.
It absolutely is a "crushing weight". It's one of the many reasons I love Dune, and Herbert's stories. Here's this guy who is the typical good-guy, and then maybe he might be the bad-guy, but if so, he's also the best/least-worse of all the possible bad-guys, so he's a good-bad-good guy. Just like Brian writes in the afterward, you can read through Dune multiple times and each time pick up on different elements. And follow those elements like a string throughout the whole book. Psychology, politics, ecology, history, humanity, and so on and on.
Thank you for the reload on spice prescience, Ms Nerd Cookies. The target release date for Villeneuve's Dune Part 2 is the end of 2023, so I look forward to more Dune content from you.
Prescience in the Dune universe is the product of enhanced cognitive computational power resulting from intensive mental training (e.g. as a mentat or bene geserit) and the psychoactive effects of spice. People in the dune universe with prescience aren't seeing the future per se in some mystical, crystal ball sense, but rather a likely future given knowledge of certain known and unknown variables. Prescient people are essentially running a predictive algorithm in their heads.
It is actually stated in the books that prescient awareness of the future *does* involve the perception and utilization of higher order dimensions which are not normally perceptible to humans. So there *is* a kind of loosely "psychic" angle in play.
@@daniels7907Dune is so friggin cool. Peering into the future isn’t technically even magic, it’s just a really accurate prediction of what going to happen based on the variables.
@@ValentinoMarino11 - It is to the extent that, as I noted, it depends on being able to perceive higher order dimensions. This is why and how, in the later novels, no-ships and no-chambers were invented which could conceal things from some degree of prescience, including Leto II's. At one point Miles Teg does fake using super-computational mentat skills to predict the positions of cloaked ships. He does so only to conceal the fact that he has developed advanced prescience which allows him to sense where the no-ships are. Because he doesn't want his crew, or their Bene Gesserit mistresses, to know that he can do that.
I initially interpreted that prescience, in Dune's case, was the same way we all predict the future but greatly enhanced by hyperawareness, Mentat-like information processing, and the near bottomless depths of experience from Other Memory. However, I don't know how to reconcile that with things like No-Ships or certain genes somehow blocking that ability.
When I saw David Lynch’s Dune I didn’t understand it very well. When I saw Dune Part 1, I understood Dune better. When I started reading the Dune books and watching this channel, I now get the Dune universe. Thank you Elaine.
I feel like mistr Herbert in his youth went to a bar or pub with his friends and probably saw a bottle of tequila with a worm in it and was like I have an idea for a book.
Ahh, the wonderful aroma of fresh baked nerd cookies, marvelous. Having the ability to fore see the future or possible future seems to me to be a very daunting responsibility. With the adiliy to do so would carry such a weight that it would take a very strong and special person to handle such an overwhelming task.
I enjoyed this video as I thus far always have, when viewing any of your content. The idea of prescience is The one big potential departure from Speculative- Fiction/Sci-Fi. I myself am and have long been a die-hard, more "traditional" Sci-Fi fan. (Mostly I mean Sci-Fi without Fantasy; though I do also love 80's film and 60/70's books). However, Dune still manages to stay in this realm and avoid the fantasy genre, to me. Partly because prescience is the only thing like that in the series. Yes there is Shai Halud, axlotl tanks, semuta, no-ships, etc. But these things, I think, can all be explained well, within the universe. It is 10,000 freakin' years in our future for one thing. (That is so wildly kool to think about; where we could then...); humans have (discovered/created/re-created) a level of supreme control over there bodies and minds that I think some people might not fully grasp if they've only seen the film(s). There's Bene Gesserit years of training to control their every muscle, nerve, chemical reactions in body, and so on. And also, fairly early in Dune Messiah, Frank tell us that at the time of the Butlerian Jihad, humanity had some AI systems which were of near infinite power (more than SkyNet by the by). Then humans killed ( possibly, possibly not) these super-minds, and then once mentats where fully established, their abilities in logic and computation were greater than that of old Earth's super-computers. These and other aspects, make it much simpler (for me anyway) to see the other "magic-esque" seeming things in the series, as explainable by advances made by Trillions of humans large segments of whom spent generations directed at bettering the species, over several thousand years, filled with science and engineering that frankly, and respectfully, put anything in Star Wars' vast universe, to shame. Including Death Stars and Kyber. (I do like some Star Wars, please don't set your blasters to blast). Paul's visions are often "tri-nocular" visions of past, present, and future; and he was also trained as and did become a "fully realized" mentat. So, I'm not sure, I can make a rationalization for Paul's and others' prescient abilities by thinking that some humans not only could operate like a supercomputer but perhaps by being able to work out probabilities, maybe they begin to approach that physics though experiment. Wherein working out enough probabilities for enough events, they could essentially predict the future in real-time as they constantly adjust the calculations. Anyhoodles. Who knows? I'm biased as hell on Dune and Herbert's other writings. I can see how Prescience could still stick out to some other people. I see Star Wars as fantasy for example. The probability of thousands of years of selective breeding and a lifetime of training however, leading to things such as feature in Dune, is not zero, I think.
the final solution is the end result. It can be arrived at threw calculations or intuitions. That future is the valley beyond the view of the mountain. Calculations are lines of logic. It is static and does not measure untangible tangibles. It is based on probabilities, statistics, trends, patterns. Mentats develop this. This is the mental plane. Intuition is a measurement of interacting wave field functions. Prescience uses this. The heart feels the variables, in totality to the degrees of which the mind has formulated the dimensions of varying field interactions. Archetypes, culture, masculine, feminine, politics, physics, time and space. In the span of a few seconds. It is infinitely faster but less accurate, until its developed then exactitude can be developed. Any mason does this by measuring dimensions. Eventually the mind measures without the tool. Only for certain fields is logic absolutely necessary to measurements where intuition cannot measure. Microversal calculations. This is the emotional plane. The final solution remains unaffected by how its arrived at. A kwitsach haderach weilds both to precision. Overlapping fields. At least the concept of.
That was because he wasn't willing to let go of his revenge against the Emperor and the Landsraad. This required that he turn the Fremen into his army and that he enable them to leave Arrakis in order to fight. Since there is no real-time interstellar communication in Dune, once he unleashed the Fremen he couldn't command them directly. Hence the Jihad and its unprecedented death toll.
Even after he took his revenge I believe he had the chance to stop or at least allow it to burn out quickly, instead he decided to spread the pain around and the jihad was the result, the terrible purpose was the golden path and the freman were the catalyst
@@daniels7907 A careful rereading of Paul's encounter with Leto II in the desert shows that Paul didn't have perfect prescience. Paul argued there must be a way to move forward without taking the Golden Path. It took time, but Leto finally got through to Paul, and Paul admitted he did not see all other paths lead to the extinction of the human race. It was only then that Paul accepted the Golden Path and chose to help Leto. I believe earlier in the story, Paul refused the Golden Path because of his belief there MUST be another way, he just couldn't find it. He was tortured because at every turn, in one direction he saw death and destruction, and in the other, the Terrible Purpose. It's tragic because Paul was never strong enough to follow the Golden Path even if he chose to. At least that's what Leto said about Paul and Ghanima. It always had to be Leto.
I think the video covered most of it. It's basically Bene Geserit genetic memory. The Bene Geserit had worked on Arrakis for a long time, so Paul inherited a lot of information about the planet and the people on it. Spice just helped him piece the information together into accurate predictions.
@@merdufer Yeah but having memory of what people did in the past doesn't tell you what other people will do in the future. And even though your own ancestral memory expands out to tens of thousands of ancestors the further back you go, it's still only a tiny percentage of all people who have lived. So even being a mentat and being able to calculate with high probability what people you know will do, you still only know a tiny fraction of a percentage of all current people so there isn't the data to extrapolate and predict the future. It's still not clear how Paul could know the future. He even knew the future in detail such as where enemy troops would land on Arakis so he could direct his own troops there to be waiting for them etc. He knew the future in terms of the big picture but he also knew on a detailed level. How this is possible isn't explained.
@@NR-rv8rz It looks very clear from the text of the Dune books that Paul's ability is just meant to be genetic memory plus a combination of Mentat and Bene Gesserit training plus spice. Just because sometimes the books stretch his capabilities for plot/coolness reasons doesn't mean there are other forces at work. If you want to argue that there are, you need to show text from the books that say so. It's like arguing a movie character can fly because the movie shows him pulling stunts that defy gravity - it's not really flying unless the movie says it is, otherwise it's just a cool stunt.
@@merdufer I'm not arguing that Paul can actually see the future. I'm pointing out that the books say that he can yet fails to show how. For example, I can see that western culture is declining in moral authority. I don't like it and can't stop it but I can clearly predict it. So am I prescient? No, I can just read the writing on the wall after studying history. I can project forward. But that not all that Paul or Leto 2 does. Paul knowing exactly when when and where a bunch of assassins will land on Arakis after he became emperor and organizing his troops to be waiting to ambush them based on nothing more than his prescience is a clear indicator that the book is saying that Paul can predict specific future things. Meteorologists can predict where a hurricane will be three days in the future but they can not predict were individual water molecules will be three minutes in the future. It's easy to accept that Paul can see where history is going or what the possible paths are. But the book fails to explain how he and Leto can 'see' individual events in the future.
@@NR-rv8rz It's not that important for the Dune series to come up with a realistic mechanism for prescience or set believable boundaries for its capabilities. The series is mostly a commentary on hero worship and US foreign policies, not a scientific paper on how prescience may be possible. The text of the series itself is very clear that prescience is the result of genetic memory, training, and spice, even if it doesn't explain the mechanism in detail. You can either take the author's word for it, or decide you prefer to go read hard sci-fi like The Three Body Problem instead.
Rev Mothers after attaining the genetic memories of men: "OMG they are so stupid!" Men attaining genetic memories of women: "geez they hold grudges eternally!" Seems like the prescient power in many fables specifies that future events are presented as many "Avenues of the future" for which no singular avenue is certain. Paul sees most avenues as the highway to hell. We should be grateful to be free of such visions.
Great video! Anyone know why Alia was able to commune with her grandfather, when male memories are usually unaccessible? Maybe she was just an exception because she was “pre-born”, but she didn’t learn it from her mother! Thanks.
Oh - that xy vs xx chromosome thing is now so obvious, why did Herbert not spell it out? This had always bothered me but is now clear. I feel like a dodo for not seeing it before.
Paul could see the Golden Path. He just wasn't willing to make the personal sacrifices required to fulfill it. So instead he indulged himself in petty vendettas by using Bene Gesserit social engineering techniques taken to their extreme. Leto II would eventually have to dismantle his father's entire governmental and religious systems and redesign them over millennia in order to achieve his goals. Even then, it's not clear whether or not he succeeded in assuring humanity's survival over the long term, because there were future prescient beings even more powerful than him who he could not perceive, but who could analyze his plans from their vantage point in the future.
Love you’re videos! It’s always a joy to see you drop a new one ❤️ I have a question. Given the enormous importance and exceptional rarity of spice, surely there were attempts to manufacture it synthetically, just as we synthesize naturally occurring chemicals all the time. Do the books ever mention such attempts by any of the galaxy’s power players? Thanks for the great content!
Sometime in the 1500 years after the death of the God Emperor, the Bene Tleilax achieved the knowledge to synthesize Melange in Axolotl tanks. But also, at the time, Melange was not integral to space travel due the invention of no-ships that could fold space without the need of a Guild Navigator.
If my mom and dad are 18yo when I am born how useful would a bunch of teenager memories be? Seems like you could only inherit memories that occurred before you were born... not after. Thus the very concept of genetic memory is mostly bs.
I don’t think having superpowers like that make some thing any more or less science fiction other than the distinction between soft Syfy and hard sci-fi since most science fiction unless it is hard Syfy I has paranormal if not outright supernatural elements one only need to look at Star Trek and yes I did say Star Trek.
You can see their presence. Just like we can see the presence of a black hole by the effects it has on things we can see. I understand your point though. That is whats so great about Dune. Suspecting the presence of another prescient was brought up a couple times in the series. Like Leto correctly deducing IX had a no-room where Hwi Noree was raised.
Happy 4th of July Elaine! 🍾🥂🎉🎊🧨✨🔥💥🛫 After working on my family tree and tracing my roots back to the Vikings, it would be very interesting to know their views on the world, so I would welcome this ability. Here's to another great video and delicious snack of milk and cookies. 👍🥛🍪
THANKYOU SO MUCH, I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS, AND UR VIDEOS ESPECIALLY THE ONES ABOUT DUNE UNIVERSE ARE AWESOME!!! I LOOK FORWARD TO MANY MORE!!! PLEASE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!
The most "precious" things seem always to come from the buttholes of some creature, be it in the Sci-Fi fantasy world of DUNE and in real life. i.e. 'Spice' and 'Coffee Luwak', respectively.
All humans have a limited sense of the future and the past in the form of memory and the imagination. Just as our eyes are not as efficient as some animals out me our memory and outl temporal senses are also not perfext
It's funny, I'd forgotten that the reason for needing a male to be the Kwisatz Haderach was because of the Y chromosome. Now I have to wonder, in all those years, was no woman ever born with ovotesticular syndrome?
No, theyre not blind to it, but rater are blinded by it. They're terrified of and are repelled by it. Canonically, two known preborn females could reach all memories, including males. Both Alia and ghanima. Them both being chimeras or such similar bodybuild at the same time sounds not impossible true, but highly unlikely. So far, my idea is, memories are not "on" genes. If they were, as a commenter said, who cares what a bunch of youngters lived trough, one needs preferably all life memories of ones ancestors, not stupid shnenigans of them as youngsters. My theory: gonosomes makes the control over the memories easier, controls the flow if you will. So, when a female attempts reaching other memories, her two x es makes it easier for her to control those memories. Because if one is faulty, well a spare x is there to use. Maybe some females couldn't pass trough agony because both x s were faulty, who knows? And a female would obviously steer clear out of, and be afraid of reaching the uncontrollable storm of male memories. If one is not preborn, and got the memories showed in their consciousness before/at the moment of awareness, then up they fly in the uncontrollable memory storm. Up to grabs by a demanding ego memory. Males have an advantage, as they have both set of controllers. Disadvantage of it is no spares exist. Normally. So any problem on any point on a gonosome is fatal if one is to live trough agony. So one needs a perfectly functioning pair. Again, if one is not a male and female chimera or such that is.
And imagine you have a memory you rely on as a group, but guess what the gene it's on has mutated after the event. Can you know? Can anyone know? And, a kid has half of mom's genes, so they have half of the memories?grandkids have a fourth if the separation was even, a grandgrandkid has an eight so on so forth.... So if genes carry memories, it's useless after let's say fifth, or better yet, tenth generation, so why bother? That's why I think genome can't be the storehouse, but can very well be controlling the reach and use of it.
My only problem is she sharing of memories they utilize in dire situations. Maybe by touching, they share some cells? And read those? But if so, they could go about getting cell samples -from living and the dead if body is preserved properly as some cells are still alive- and add them to their bodies and read them too. But that means the problems that were talked about are at play, making this a not so far reaching -and definitely not kwizas haderach producingly vast data containing- endeavor.... This is where my idea is stuck at so far. haven't found a more encompassing one yet. But with the movies on roll, there surely will come more diverse and fitting solutions. Am waiting expectantly 😃😃😃🤩😍
I’ll say it again…your videos have made the books and movie so much more enjoyable and entertaining!! Thank You NC.
It's a bot bro, stop cooming
Dune can either be a deeply philosophical Sci-Fi epic or just a bunch of people tripping balls on magic worm powder.
Porque no las dos?
I believe it's both just like on earth we have substance in our plants and mushrooms that do the same thing like dmt and such except these people of the future accept the spirits of the spice it let it expand there consciousness.
Dune can be a deeply philosophical Sci-Fi epic AND just a bunch of people tripping balls on magic worm powder 😋
Hey just like real life! -- sorta lol.
Do those two things need to be mutually exclusive?
Reminds me of an exchange from the X-Files episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose":
CLYDE BRUCKMAN: How can I see the future if it didn't already exist?
MULDER: Then if the future is written, then why bother to do anything?
CLYDE BRUCKMAN: Now you're catching on.
Explain
Very interesting that one prescient being could have a blind spot when engaging with another prscienct being.
Not just that he had tonnes of blind spots, he never saw 'everything,'
Prescience works in a sci-fi setting IMO. The ability humans have that other species don't is the ability to recall the past or project possible futures on cue, without outside stimuli (though it helps). So prescience is an extension of that normal human ability, which would seem magical to other species without that ability, if they could comprehend it.
Correct. And that justifies the gomjabar ritual Paul undergoes for the reverend mother to determine if he’s an animal or human.
@@gainmelk Other animals seemingly have less control over themselves than humans so. So, if Paul was to have the power of the Kwisatz Haderach and could not control himself, then he would be a menace. The Reverend Mother kill him to protect everyone else.
Educated probability projection is not the same as prescience. One is what a mentat does with logic. The other is what spice does to the neural system.
Mentat analytics:
This futbol team is gonna win because of this player, their stats, win rates, who their playing etc.
Vs
Prescience:
This futbol teams gonna win.
How do you know?
Just watch.
A mentat with prescience like the kwitsach haderach, however is on another level entirely.
@@jonoestreicner I would say prescience In Dune acts like an extra sense.
@@AlmostEthical the final solution is the end result. It can be arrived at threw calculations or intuitions.
Calculations are lines of logic. Mentats develop this.
Intuition is a measurement of interacting wave field functions.
Prescience uses this.
The final solution remains unaffected by how its arrived at.
I would agree, to certain degrees.
These Dune videos are always interesting. Keep up the great work and Happy Independence Day!
I have seen this analyzed several times, and none of them mention something from the first chapter of the first book.
Paul is trained as a Mentat.
Thufir states that the accuracy of a Mentat's predictions are limited by the information provided.
Paul gains access to tens of thousands of years of ancestral memory.
He doesn't see the future through some mystical magical process. He ***calculates*** it.
Paul was only trained to a point when the trainee has to be made aware he's being trained and must make an informed decision to proceed with training. War prevented Paul from further training. How much he learned about being a mentat from "other memory" is a guess. How much more training Paul would have needed to become a mentat is a guess. But, Paul certainly did not finish traditional mentat training.
@@jimclark2824then how did Leto II achieve prescience? He wasn't trained to be a mentat
@@half.blight being prescient has nothing to do with being a mentat. The top level commenter was trying to make a connection that doesn't exist.
Love your videos. I'm glad you didn't go for the cliché "Paul is actually the bad guy" it's become so common. The responsibility of prescience is a crushing weight on even the most benevolent person.
It absolutely is a "crushing weight". It's one of the many reasons I love Dune, and Herbert's stories. Here's this guy who is the typical good-guy, and then maybe he might be the bad-guy, but if so, he's also the best/least-worse of all the possible bad-guys, so he's a good-bad-good guy. Just like Brian writes in the afterward, you can read through Dune multiple times and each time pick up on different elements. And follow those elements like a string throughout the whole book.
Psychology, politics, ecology, history, humanity, and so on and on.
I just wanted to say I love your channel I’m a massive Tolkien fan and thanks to your videos am becoming a huge Dune fan thank you keep it going!!!
Thank you!
Thank you for the reload on spice prescience, Ms Nerd Cookies.
The target release date for Villeneuve's Dune Part 2 is the end of 2023, so I look forward to more Dune content from you.
Prescience in the Dune universe is the product of enhanced cognitive computational power resulting from intensive mental training (e.g. as a mentat or bene geserit) and the psychoactive effects of spice. People in the dune universe with prescience aren't seeing the future per se in some mystical, crystal ball sense, but rather a likely future given knowledge of certain known and unknown variables. Prescient people are essentially running a predictive algorithm in their heads.
It is actually stated in the books that prescient awareness of the future *does* involve the perception and utilization of higher order dimensions which are not normally perceptible to humans. So there *is* a kind of loosely "psychic" angle in play.
@@daniels7907Dune is so friggin cool.
Peering into the future isn’t technically even magic, it’s just a really accurate prediction of what going to happen based on the variables.
@@ValentinoMarino11 - It is to the extent that, as I noted, it depends on being able to perceive higher order dimensions. This is why and how, in the later novels, no-ships and no-chambers were invented which could conceal things from some degree of prescience, including Leto II's.
At one point Miles Teg does fake using super-computational mentat skills to predict the positions of cloaked ships. He does so only to conceal the fact that he has developed advanced prescience which allows him to sense where the no-ships are. Because he doesn't want his crew, or their Bene Gesserit mistresses, to know that he can do that.
I initially interpreted that prescience, in Dune's case, was the same way we all predict the future but greatly enhanced by hyperawareness, Mentat-like information processing, and the near bottomless depths of experience from Other Memory. However, I don't know how to reconcile that with things like No-Ships or certain genes somehow blocking that ability.
Prescience is basically psychic power
This review reminds me so much of the narration of the history that Paul was using :) thank you brilliant ⭐️🙏🏼🙏🏼
When I saw David Lynch’s Dune I didn’t understand it very well. When I saw Dune Part 1, I understood Dune better. When I started reading the Dune books and watching this channel, I now get the Dune universe. Thank you Elaine.
I feel like mistr Herbert in his youth went to a bar or pub with his friends and probably saw a bottle of tequila with a worm in it and was like I have an idea for a book.
Thank for your analysis, insights and detailed presentations.
Ahh, the wonderful aroma of fresh baked nerd cookies, marvelous.
Having the ability to fore see the future or possible future seems to me to be a very daunting responsibility. With the adiliy to do so would carry such a weight that it would take a very strong and special person to handle such an overwhelming task.
First, my goodness I love your voice and interests!
Simp lol
the background music though! woooo hits hard 😁
I enjoyed this video as I thus far always have, when viewing any of your content.
The idea of prescience is The one big potential departure from Speculative- Fiction/Sci-Fi. I myself am and have long been a die-hard, more "traditional" Sci-Fi fan. (Mostly I mean Sci-Fi without Fantasy; though I do also love 80's film and 60/70's books). However, Dune still manages to stay in this realm and avoid the fantasy genre, to me. Partly because prescience is the only thing like that in the series.
Yes there is Shai Halud, axlotl tanks, semuta, no-ships, etc. But these things, I think, can all be explained well, within the universe. It is 10,000 freakin' years in our future for one thing. (That is so wildly kool to think about; where we could then...); humans have (discovered/created/re-created) a level of supreme control over there bodies and minds that I think some people might not fully grasp if they've only seen the film(s). There's Bene Gesserit years of training to control their every muscle, nerve, chemical reactions in body, and so on.
And also, fairly early in Dune Messiah, Frank tell us that at the time of the Butlerian Jihad, humanity had some AI systems which were of near infinite power (more than SkyNet by the by). Then humans killed ( possibly, possibly not) these super-minds, and then once mentats where fully established, their abilities in logic and computation were greater than that of old Earth's super-computers.
These and other aspects, make it much simpler (for me anyway) to see the other "magic-esque" seeming things in the series, as explainable by advances made by Trillions of humans large segments of whom spent generations directed at bettering the species, over several thousand years, filled with science and engineering that frankly, and respectfully, put anything in Star Wars' vast universe, to shame. Including Death Stars and Kyber. (I do like some Star Wars, please don't set your blasters to blast).
Paul's visions are often "tri-nocular" visions of past, present, and future; and he was also trained as and did become a "fully realized" mentat. So, I'm not sure, I can make a rationalization for Paul's and others' prescient abilities by thinking that some humans not only could operate like a supercomputer but perhaps by being able to work out probabilities, maybe they begin to approach that physics though experiment. Wherein working out enough probabilities for enough events, they could essentially predict the future in real-time as they constantly adjust the calculations.
Anyhoodles. Who knows? I'm biased as hell on Dune and Herbert's other writings. I can see how Prescience could still stick out to some other people. I see Star Wars as fantasy for example. The probability of thousands of years of selective breeding and a lifetime of training however, leading to things such as feature in Dune, is not zero, I think.
Yayyy!!! Its Monday Dune Cookies time!!! Yayyyy!!!😍😍😍
the final solution is the end result. It can be arrived at threw calculations or intuitions. That future is the valley beyond the view of the mountain.
Calculations are lines of logic. It is static and does not measure untangible tangibles. It is based on probabilities, statistics, trends, patterns. Mentats develop this. This is the mental plane.
Intuition is a measurement of interacting wave field functions.
Prescience uses this. The heart feels the variables, in totality to the degrees of which the mind has formulated the dimensions of varying field interactions. Archetypes, culture, masculine, feminine, politics, physics, time and space. In the span of a few seconds.
It is infinitely faster but less accurate, until its developed then exactitude can be developed. Any mason does this by measuring dimensions. Eventually the mind measures without the tool. Only for certain fields is logic absolutely necessary to measurements where intuition cannot measure. Microversal calculations.
This is the emotional plane.
The final solution remains unaffected by how its arrived at.
A kwitsach haderach weilds both to precision. Overlapping fields. At least the concept of.
In Dune, the superdeterminist quantum theory is true.
Paul referred to it as a terrible purpose, he said he saw only one path
That was because he wasn't willing to let go of his revenge against the Emperor and the Landsraad. This required that he turn the Fremen into his army and that he enable them to leave Arrakis in order to fight. Since there is no real-time interstellar communication in Dune, once he unleashed the Fremen he couldn't command them directly. Hence the Jihad and its unprecedented death toll.
Even after he took his revenge I believe he had the chance to stop or at least allow it to burn out quickly, instead he decided to spread the pain around and the jihad was the result, the terrible purpose was the golden path and the freman were the catalyst
@@daniels7907 A careful rereading of Paul's encounter with Leto II in the desert shows that Paul didn't have perfect prescience. Paul argued there must be a way to move forward without taking the Golden Path. It took time, but Leto finally got through to Paul, and Paul admitted he did not see all other paths lead to the extinction of the human race. It was only then that Paul accepted the Golden Path and chose to help Leto. I believe earlier in the story, Paul refused the Golden Path because of his belief there MUST be another way, he just couldn't find it. He was tortured because at every turn, in one direction he saw death and destruction, and in the other, the Terrible Purpose. It's tragic because Paul was never strong enough to follow the Golden Path even if he chose to. At least that's what Leto said about Paul and Ghanima. It always had to be Leto.
Yay ! Now I am having a great time on Fourth of July!
Great video, as always!!!
Thanks elaine and nick.
Interesting as always, but I don't think the video explains 'how' Paul has prescience.
More, it explains that the spice enables it.
I think the video covered most of it. It's basically Bene Geserit genetic memory. The Bene Geserit had worked on Arrakis for a long time, so Paul inherited a lot of information about the planet and the people on it. Spice just helped him piece the information together into accurate predictions.
@@merdufer Yeah but having memory of what people did in the past doesn't tell you what other people will do in the future.
And even though your own ancestral memory expands out to tens of thousands of ancestors the further back you go, it's still only a tiny percentage of all people who have lived.
So even being a mentat and being able to calculate with high probability what people you know will do, you still only know a tiny fraction of a percentage of all current people so there isn't the data to extrapolate and predict the future.
It's still not clear how Paul could know the future. He even knew the future in detail such as where enemy troops would land on Arakis so he could direct his own troops there to be waiting for them etc.
He knew the future in terms of the big picture but he also knew on a detailed level. How this is possible isn't explained.
@@NR-rv8rz It looks very clear from the text of the Dune books that Paul's ability is just meant to be genetic memory plus a combination of Mentat and Bene Gesserit training plus spice. Just because sometimes the books stretch his capabilities for plot/coolness reasons doesn't mean there are other forces at work. If you want to argue that there are, you need to show text from the books that say so. It's like arguing a movie character can fly because the movie shows him pulling stunts that defy gravity - it's not really flying unless the movie says it is, otherwise it's just a cool stunt.
@@merdufer I'm not arguing that Paul can actually see the future. I'm pointing out that the books say that he can yet fails to show how.
For example, I can see that western culture is declining in moral authority. I don't like it and can't stop it but I can clearly predict it. So am I prescient? No, I can just read the writing on the wall after studying history. I can project forward.
But that not all that Paul or Leto 2 does.
Paul knowing exactly when when and where a bunch of assassins will land on Arakis after he became emperor and organizing his troops to be waiting to ambush them based on nothing more than his prescience is a clear indicator that the book is saying that Paul can predict specific future things.
Meteorologists can predict where a hurricane will be three days in the future but they can not predict were individual water molecules will be three minutes in the future.
It's easy to accept that Paul can see where history is going or what the possible paths are. But the book fails to explain how he and Leto can 'see' individual events in the future.
@@NR-rv8rz It's not that important for the Dune series to come up with a realistic mechanism for prescience or set believable boundaries for its capabilities. The series is mostly a commentary on hero worship and US foreign policies, not a scientific paper on how prescience may be possible.
The text of the series itself is very clear that prescience is the result of genetic memory, training, and spice, even if it doesn't explain the mechanism in detail. You can either take the author's word for it, or decide you prefer to go read hard sci-fi like The Three Body Problem instead.
Rev Mothers after attaining the genetic memories of men: "OMG they are so stupid!" Men attaining genetic memories of women: "geez they hold grudges eternally!" Seems like the prescient power in many fables specifies that future events are presented as many "Avenues of the future" for which no singular avenue is certain. Paul sees most avenues as the highway to hell. We should be grateful to be free of such visions.
The (Nerd) Cookies ware most welcome 🙏🏾
Greets from the Netherlands 🇳🇱🖖🏾
Great video! Anyone know why Alia was able to commune with her grandfather, when male memories are usually unaccessible? Maybe she was just an exception because she was “pre-born”, but she didn’t learn it from her mother! Thanks.
He sees up to the nexus point in part three of Dune (bk 1)
He cannot see beyond that point until he survives the water of life
Oh - that xy vs xx chromosome thing is now so obvious, why did Herbert not spell it out? This had always bothered me but is now clear. I feel like a dodo for not seeing it before.
Paul could see the Golden Path. He just wasn't willing to make the personal sacrifices required to fulfill it. So instead he indulged himself in petty vendettas by using Bene Gesserit social engineering techniques taken to their extreme. Leto II would eventually have to dismantle his father's entire governmental and religious systems and redesign them over millennia in order to achieve his goals. Even then, it's not clear whether or not he succeeded in assuring humanity's survival over the long term, because there were future prescient beings even more powerful than him who he could not perceive, but who could analyze his plans from their vantage point in the future.
Please look into the “Juice Of Saphos” of the Mentats next.
Love you’re videos! It’s always a joy to see you drop a new one ❤️
I have a question. Given the enormous importance and exceptional rarity of spice, surely there were attempts to manufacture it synthetically, just as we synthesize naturally occurring chemicals all the time. Do the books ever mention such attempts by any of the galaxy’s power players?
Thanks for the great content!
your* 😉
in Chapterhouse Dune their is a substitute. just google. not sure if it is earlier re reading the books.
Sometime in the 1500 years after the death of the God Emperor, the Bene Tleilax achieved the knowledge to synthesize Melange in Axolotl tanks. But also, at the time, Melange was not integral to space travel due the invention of no-ships that could fold space without the need of a Guild Navigator.
@@agustinorero1668 Very interesting! thanks!
Even the very wise cannot see all ends.
pretty accurate...
If my mom and dad are 18yo when I am born how useful would a bunch of teenager memories be? Seems like you could only inherit memories that occurred before you were born... not after. Thus the very concept of genetic memory is mostly bs.
I don’t think having superpowers like that make some thing any more or less science fiction other than the distinction between soft Syfy and hard sci-fi since most science fiction unless it is hard Syfy I has paranormal if not outright supernatural elements one only need to look at Star Trek and yes I did say Star Trek.
Hope you guys had a happy independence day weekend.
One prescient being can not see the the presence of the othersvbecause you can not see the actions of on who sees your actions.
You can see their presence. Just like we can see the presence of a black hole by the effects it has on things we can see. I understand your point though. That is whats so great about Dune. Suspecting the presence of another prescient was brought up a couple times in the series. Like Leto correctly deducing IX had a no-room where Hwi Noree was raised.
✌🏾🤙🏾❤️❤️ Nerd cookies.
possibilities of human being
Not a narcotic per se, but a organic symbiosis.
Cheers.
Happy 4th of July Elaine! 🍾🥂🎉🎊🧨✨🔥💥🛫
After working on my family tree and tracing my roots back to the Vikings, it would be very interesting to know their views on the world, so I would welcome this ability. Here's to another great video and delicious snack of milk and cookies. 👍🥛🍪
Fantasy heh
Look up Genetic ancestral memories and Unus Mundus
Then synch up with
Attack on Titan
Matrix
Assassin's Creed
When I read Dune I eat spice cake.
This is also a story based on algorithms and AI. A twist on the science of code breaking.
He uses a crystal ball 🔮😄
Dune is basically humanity if Elon wins the court case against Sam and then the US legalizes psychedelics.
4:01 Yikes! Are those Reverend Mothers or Cenobites???
THIS IS FOR NERD COOKIES, DO U KNOW WHY DUNE(ARAKIS) IS THE ONLY PLANET IN WHICH SPICE CAN ONLY BE FOUND???
Because it's the only place where sandworms have been found.
THANKYOU SO MUCH, I REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS, AND UR VIDEOS ESPECIALLY THE ONES ABOUT DUNE UNIVERSE ARE AWESOME!!! I LOOK FORWARD TO MANY MORE!!! PLEASE KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!
The most "precious" things seem always to come from the buttholes of some creature, be it in the Sci-Fi fantasy world of DUNE and in real life. i.e. 'Spice' and 'Coffee Luwak', respectively.
Nerd Cookies, could you please cover the two 2000s mini series. I've always loved them and frequently re-watch them.
I'll save you 9 minutes: drugs
All humans have a limited sense of the future and the past in the form of memory and the imagination. Just as our eyes are not as efficient as some animals out me our memory and outl temporal senses are also not perfext
THE SAME QUESTION APPLIES TO THE WORMS ON DUNE (ARAKIS). SORRY.
Frank Herbert never explains how they got there. Leto II comments that the sand trout were brought there from some other place long before
Meh.. all they had to do was to identify as male.
It's funny, I'd forgotten that the reason for needing a male to be the Kwisatz Haderach was because of the Y chromosome. Now I have to wonder, in all those years, was no woman ever born with ovotesticular syndrome?
No, theyre not blind to it, but rater are blinded by it. They're terrified of and are repelled by it. Canonically, two known preborn females could reach all memories, including males. Both Alia and ghanima. Them both being chimeras or such similar bodybuild at the same time sounds not impossible true, but highly unlikely.
So far, my idea is, memories are not "on" genes. If they were, as a commenter said, who cares what a bunch of youngters lived trough, one needs preferably all life memories of ones ancestors, not stupid shnenigans of them as youngsters.
My theory: gonosomes makes the control over the memories easier, controls the flow if you will. So, when a female attempts reaching other memories, her two x es makes it easier for her to control those memories. Because if one is faulty, well a spare x is there to use. Maybe some females couldn't pass trough agony because both x s were faulty, who knows? And a female would obviously steer clear out of, and be afraid of reaching the uncontrollable storm of male memories. If one is not preborn, and got the memories showed in their consciousness before/at the moment of awareness, then up they fly in the uncontrollable memory storm. Up to grabs by a demanding ego memory.
Males have an advantage, as they have both set of controllers. Disadvantage of it is no spares exist. Normally. So any problem on any point on a gonosome is fatal if one is to live trough agony. So one needs a perfectly functioning pair.
Again, if one is not a male and female chimera or such that is.
And imagine you have a memory you rely on as a group, but guess what the gene it's on has mutated after the event. Can you know? Can anyone know?
And, a kid has half of mom's genes, so they have half of the memories?grandkids have a fourth if the separation was even, a grandgrandkid has an eight so on so forth.... So if genes carry memories, it's useless after let's say fifth, or better yet, tenth generation, so why bother?
That's why I think genome can't be the storehouse, but can very well be controlling the reach and use of it.
My only problem is she sharing of memories they utilize in dire situations. Maybe by touching, they share some cells? And read those? But if so, they could go about getting cell samples -from living and the dead if body is preserved properly as some cells are still alive- and add them to their bodies and read them too.
But that means the problems that were talked about are at play, making this a not so far reaching -and definitely not kwizas haderach producingly vast data containing- endeavor....
This is where my idea is stuck at so far. haven't found a more encompassing one yet. But with the movies on roll, there surely will come more diverse and fitting solutions. Am waiting expectantly 😃😃😃🤩😍
Now that I think of it, a male male chimera would have two x and y. Was kwizas haderach a male X 2 chimera? Maybe🤷🏻♀️