Prescience, Genetic Memory, and Personal Identity in Frank Herbert's Dune Trilogy
"Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain"(Herbert, Dune 68).
–Bene Gesserit Proverb
Ben Bova begins his liner notes on Frank Herbert Reads his God Emperor of Dune (Excerpts) by stating that "All truly great art shares this characteristic: the more you study it, the more it reveals" (Herbert). Although it refers specifically to the fourth book in the Dune Chronicles, his statement also applies to the trilogy that precedes it–Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. Herbert's "polyphonic" work contains themes on so many levels (ecology, politics, war, philosophy, religion, and technology, just to name a few), that it soon becomes difficult to separate one from the other. The topic of human awareness, however, takes on a specific tone and special level of importance above all the others. Whether looking at the Bene Gesserit sisterhood and their political intrigues and planning, or the Mentat's historical role as the human computer 1 , filing away and analyzing countless bits of data, human awareness somehow always becomes a focus. Even in the economics of the work, where the "coin of the realm," the spice melange, is able not only to extend human life, but also to open up both past and future to the properly prepared mind, does this theme become evident.
With all of his attention on the awareness of humanity, however, Herbert had more common and more difficult questions on his mind. By creating a character, Paul Atreides, who is able to see not only into the future, but also into the past lives that made up his long list of ancestors, the questions of personal and societal identity are brought forward. These powers, which Herbert refers to as "prescience" and "genetic memory," respectively, give Paul so much knowledge that he is no longer able to function as an individual. He finds himself limited to certain actions because he knows the outcomes. Once on top of the mountain, so to speak, he can no longer see where he stands. In turn, Paul's son Leto II and daughter Ghanima, as well as his sister Alia, are also forced to deal with the issues of such knowledge in the entirely different light of "Abomination," a condition that befalls those whose inherited memories are unearthed before they are born.
Every encounter Paul has with someone he creates a new identity to bond and connect with them. Throughout the play Paul creates multiple personas for himself, he realizes that he is an empty vessel with no past and only memories of what he has done during his different personas. Paul loses control over his multiple personas which cause them to overlap with each other. Which causes him to feel lost and in search of help, when Ousia offers this help he gladly takes it which end up putting him in prison and never to be seen in New York.
He does not believe he will ever make it back to travel the other road since roads tend to lead to other roads to take along the journey.
To answer the question of whether a person can persist through time, it is important to consider what is meant by a ‘person’. This consideration seems trivial at first, and if one were to take the physicalist route, it would be – a person persists through time by existing as the same human animal. However, it is in fact a lot harder to pinpoint what the ‘self’ actually consists of if we were to take the psychological route and consider the voice inside our heads, the voice that thinks and experiences and suffers. What is this mysterious immaterial phenomenon that we hold to be our personal identity? And what makes it the same entity as the one yesterday? Although these questions don’t have an explicit answer yet, in this essay I will attempt to give an insight on how they could be answered, offering a psychological
After dissecting the one road, the speaker takes the other path without putting as much time investigating it. He makes so...
All throughout the novel Paul makes a lot of choices and all those choices have a
When trying to understand these particular characters’ experiences, it is very important to consider their worldviews, which promote “[th...
describes Adam and Eve's fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. By giving George
James, Jenks and Prout (1998) argue that childhood is characterised by sets of cultural values whereby the ‘…western childhood has become a period of social dependency, asexuality, and the obligation to be happy, with children having the right to protection and training but not to social or personal autonomy’ (James, Jenks and Prouts 1998 pg. 62). Here, childhood is described in sets of distinguished features and these features imply that the concept childhood may vary from place, culture and time. Therefore suggesting that there is no fixed or universal experience of childhood, for example, childhood in the medieval UK will be extremely different to the childhood in modern UK and therefore it varies over time, place and culture. Since the definition and state of childhood may vary depending on our cultural and historical background, some sociologist claim that childhood is not just biological, but must have been socially constructed for a specific society needs at a particular time. In this essay, I will attempt to explore ways in which childhood is said to be socially constructed by looking at historical childhood and how it has led to construction of modern childhood in the modern society. I will also explore the agency of children as competent social actors able to construct their social world.
Steinbeck uses the biblical story of Cain and Abel in East of Eden to show us that we do not have set fate. Steinbeck uses the Hebrew word “timshel”, which means “thou mayest”, to suggest that man has the ability to choose good or evil. “Timshel” affects the characters in East of Eden such as Cal and Aron and their choice of overcoming good or evil. Steinbeck sees this novel as his most important work, and he uses it as a way to state his personal ideas concerning mankind:“The free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.”(Steinbeck,132). Steinbeck shows God has given humans free will and their ability to choose good or evil, if they so decide. He portrays the “C” characters to be connected to Cain, such as Charles and Cal and the “A” characters to be connected to Abel, such as Aron and Adam.
For example, after the murder of his best friend, Paul begins to have these sharp, sudden panic attacks. It is also discovered that the main source of his distress is his family’s murder when he was a child, especially of his father, whose death he blames himself for. Paul convinces himself throughout the movie that he has been cured while leaving the underlying cause unexamined and unresolved. Ben realizes the underlying problem when he was invited to lunch at Paul’s favorite restaurant, but told that it’s the restaurant where his father got murdered at, right before his eyes, when Paul was a child. Ben instantly believes he could help Paul after all. The death of his family and father, for Paul it was misplaced guilt on
Memory is the tool we use to learn and think. We all use memory in our everyday lives. Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. We all reassure ourselves that our memories are accurate and precise. Many people believe that they would be able to remember anything from the event and the different features of the situation. Yet, people don’t realize the fact that the more you think about a situation the more likely the story will change. Our memories are not a camcorder or a camera. Our memory tends to be very selective and reconstructive.
validate this thought, it is upon "...a road less travelled" in the lines of "The Mending Wall"
The conflict of this story is shown with Paul trying to deal with his father’s death in the Portrait of an Invisible Man, and his divorce in The Book of Memory. As Paul received the sudden news of his father’s death, he was taken back by the fact he actually passed away. Paul then made the trip with his wife to clear out his father’s possessions from the house, so they could pu...
Although homework may seem like drudgery, the hard work that is put into homework may pay off in the long run. In the article, “Does homework really work for students?” Jacqueline Carey, the mother of seventh grade student Micah Carey, stated that “homework gives [students] a good foundation for when they move on further in school” (Johnson). Not only that but according to Donyall Dickey, principle at Murray Hill Middle School, “if students do not acquire things in class, they will acquire them through homework” (Johnson). As we can see homework helps and prepares us for higher grade levels while in primary school that can possibly prepare us for college. It also helps us to remember the materials that were taught in class. Another reason homework can be beneficial is the fact that it can prepare us for tests and the dreadful pop-quiz that a teacher may randomly give us. This fact was proven, according to a 2006 study by Harris Cooper, director of Duke University’s Program in education, in the article “Homework or Not? That is the (Research) Question”. The studies instituted that “students who had homework performed better on class tests compared to those who did not” (DeNisco). Another compelling thing about homework, are the qualities a skills th...
...e no matter which one we take. Those roads we do not take end up being the ones we wonder about if we chose the right one or not.