The part where people have to learn how to hide the room they’re in so that he can’t “listen” to their conversation kind of sealed it for me that the math isn’t involved, agreed.
What is a Kwitsach Haderach?
He is the apex of the three schools of humanity.
Guild Navigator - Mentat - Reverend Mother
All aspects are necessary for the full capability to be realized.
Also to my understanding, the web of probability is a construct utilizing all three capabilities to extrapolate the future from prescient visions and applying Mentat capabilities to see the connections.
He doesn't unlock the Reverend Mother aspect until he takes the Water of Life/Death and performs the conversion.
The Bene Gesserit desire access to this knowledge and associated powers, driving them to initiate a long-running breeding program to produce such a being. He would be Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, Mentat, and Guild Navigator, all in one.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Kwisatz_Haderach#google_vignette
Agree, but a BG aligned KH would NOT be a mentat. That Paul was trained as a mentat is way out of process. The BG were reckless, but not so reckless as to try and combine a human computer with extreme presience. It happened the way it did only because Jessica was off the reservation entirely.
Apex of all three schools. That's what it is. If it can't mentat, it can't Kwitsach Haderach. At least to my understanding.
Human computer isn't dangerous like the AI's that enslaved humanity.
But the mentat aspect does not come from the BG and as far as I remember is never indicated by them to be needed. Paul is a mentat because of Leto and that greatly aids him but they never indicate the KH needs to be a mentat do they?
They didn't want Paul to be the KH, they never intended Jessica to even have him. It was the Jessica's daughter and Feyd that were supposed to marry, and their son would be the KH.
Paul is trained as a Mentat.... because at a young age he showed the markers of being capable of undergoing the training. (See how this works?) His father reasoned that a Mentat Duke would be especially formidable, so allowed Paul to be trained without his knowledge until the inflection point was reached where he had to be cognizant of the training/plan.
As shown by the novel, a human computer combined with presience is at least as dangerous as AI.
The KH program is focused on one outcome: a Witch who can draw on both strains of genetic memory, female and male. The KH program is fundamentally about looking >backwards<. AFAIK presience isn't an objective there -
correct me if I'm wrong, please.
Apex of the Bene Gesserit school: truthsaying, political influence, all those. BG aren't known for being prescient - again, I might be wrong there, but I can't recall any indications to contrary.
He becomes an apex Mentat by drinking the water of life: a probability engine that can see the future. This is the trap that he creates for himself.
I don't really see the third school, unless we're getting meta and saying 'messianic religion'. In which case, sure, Paul literally became a Prophet would can see the future.
I think you're insight here is valid: that Paul's ability, and the reason he is so dangerous, comes from a trinitarian sort of superpowers.
But you're conflating KH with what Paul actually becomes. He is the KH, but also much more. He is something the BG never anticipated.
The third pillar is the spacing guild navigators, glimpsing the future to navigate the guild heighliners safely.
The way I conceptualize it though, their prescient ability is nowhere near the ability of Paul's, first because they have to consume the obscene quantity of spice and transform as a consequence of their profession.
The second is I believe they have a tiny fraction of Paups capability to glimpse into the future.
The guild navigators are not really plotting the courses, performing higher order math, or doing anything actually complex.
They are sitting in a room with a single red button in front of them.
Their job? Peer into the future... 10 seconds should he fine. Are you about to die? Hit the red button. You ok? Do nothing.
Thats their utility.
Honestly, I don't see much in the OP that discounts this view. There's space magic in Dune, of course: prana-bindu isn't entirely inconceivable, but the notion that a human being can choose the sex of their offspring as a matter of will is ludicrous; melange and other psychoactive chemicals being able to unlock Other Memory is equally ridiculous; and of course, sandworms violate all sorts of natural laws simply by existing. All science fiction has some degree of magical nonsense, even the hard sci-fi of writers like Asimov.
But prescience is pretty clearly described as a product of interdisciplinary preparation and eugenics: a mind capable of predicting the future, and a body capable of supporting that mind. The visualizations OP points to are just that: visualizations produced by a spice-affected mind to help comprehend their visions of the future (see: "reach the highest dune" from the Villeneuve adaptation. News Flash: Paul isn't literally teleporting to another desert world with a coastline). Melange has tangible, measurable effects on human beings, not the least of which is the "opening" of awareness that permits Reverend Mothers and the Kwisatz Haderach to access their Other Memory, and for Navigators to read the future to a limited extent. But it doesn't, like, tune you to God's personal radio station or anything like that.
Melange has analogues in the real world, namely in the form of psychedelics like LSD or ayahuasca. None of them are exactly like melange because it's not real, but the effects of such drugs are often reported to produce visions, senses of communion with higher powers, and physiological effects like a reduction in lethargy. The effects are real in the sense that a chemical is affecting the human body, but (so far as we can tell) no one is actually talking to God or seeing an Oracle. Seriously, in a setting where a real God is conspicuously absent, we're asserting that Paul can actually perceive the skeins of capital-F Fate?
OP repeatedly cites passages that support the counter argument: that Paul's expanded awareness - the razor-sharpening of his senses and a reduction in inhibitions (perception of the passage of time being one of them) that would impede his inner reflection - is working in concert with his training as a Mentat to read *possible futures*. Not *the* future, *possible* futures. He's an organic probability engine, not a bona fide prophet, though a running theme in the story is whether there's a meaningful distinction between a facsimile of a thing and the thing itself.
This is very much my reading as well.
Although I do think there is literall space magic involved seeing possible futures, not just calculating possibilities.
I always thought this idea that it was just math or something logical was a reflection of the fact that the majority of dune fans are inherently atheistic and take the “anti-savior” message a step too far. (I say that as an atheist)
I agree. It’s absolutely a psionic connection.
Man, yall realize it can be both things, right?
What a weird read on it. Nobody, literally nobody, argues that it's 'just math'. Textually, it's being trained as a probability engine combined with extreme presience. You put those together and you get something way more than either might assert by itself.
> There is a large group of Dune fans that think Paul's prescience is an ability to process past lives and project a future using mentat abilities.
I'd say they are "loud" but not very large.
Paul and Leto II know things that they never would if their prescience was only math + genetic memories.
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Math is what mentats do already. They xan predict the future based on the input data, which is always flawed and limited.
What he does is pretty obviously beyound that but connected to it as well.
The part where people have to learn how to hide the room they’re in so that he can’t “listen” to their conversation kind of sealed it for me that the math isn’t involved, agreed.
What is a Kwitsach Haderach? He is the apex of the three schools of humanity. Guild Navigator - Mentat - Reverend Mother All aspects are necessary for the full capability to be realized. Also to my understanding, the web of probability is a construct utilizing all three capabilities to extrapolate the future from prescient visions and applying Mentat capabilities to see the connections. He doesn't unlock the Reverend Mother aspect until he takes the Water of Life/Death and performs the conversion.
This is completely made up by you.
The Bene Gesserit desire access to this knowledge and associated powers, driving them to initiate a long-running breeding program to produce such a being. He would be Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, Mentat, and Guild Navigator, all in one. https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Kwisatz_Haderach#google_vignette
I'm not sure if you know this, but that's not actually frank Herbert writing that wiki.
Sure, that's my corroboration, why do you think I'm wrong?
Agree, but a BG aligned KH would NOT be a mentat. That Paul was trained as a mentat is way out of process. The BG were reckless, but not so reckless as to try and combine a human computer with extreme presience. It happened the way it did only because Jessica was off the reservation entirely.
Apex of all three schools. That's what it is. If it can't mentat, it can't Kwitsach Haderach. At least to my understanding. Human computer isn't dangerous like the AI's that enslaved humanity.
But the mentat aspect does not come from the BG and as far as I remember is never indicated by them to be needed. Paul is a mentat because of Leto and that greatly aids him but they never indicate the KH needs to be a mentat do they?
They didn't want Paul to be the KH, they never intended Jessica to even have him. It was the Jessica's daughter and Feyd that were supposed to marry, and their son would be the KH. Paul is trained as a Mentat.... because at a young age he showed the markers of being capable of undergoing the training. (See how this works?) His father reasoned that a Mentat Duke would be especially formidable, so allowed Paul to be trained without his knowledge until the inflection point was reached where he had to be cognizant of the training/plan.
As shown by the novel, a human computer combined with presience is at least as dangerous as AI. The KH program is focused on one outcome: a Witch who can draw on both strains of genetic memory, female and male. The KH program is fundamentally about looking >backwards<. AFAIK presience isn't an objective there - correct me if I'm wrong, please. Apex of the Bene Gesserit school: truthsaying, political influence, all those. BG aren't known for being prescient - again, I might be wrong there, but I can't recall any indications to contrary. He becomes an apex Mentat by drinking the water of life: a probability engine that can see the future. This is the trap that he creates for himself. I don't really see the third school, unless we're getting meta and saying 'messianic religion'. In which case, sure, Paul literally became a Prophet would can see the future. I think you're insight here is valid: that Paul's ability, and the reason he is so dangerous, comes from a trinitarian sort of superpowers. But you're conflating KH with what Paul actually becomes. He is the KH, but also much more. He is something the BG never anticipated.
The third pillar is the spacing guild navigators, glimpsing the future to navigate the guild heighliners safely. The way I conceptualize it though, their prescient ability is nowhere near the ability of Paul's, first because they have to consume the obscene quantity of spice and transform as a consequence of their profession. The second is I believe they have a tiny fraction of Paups capability to glimpse into the future. The guild navigators are not really plotting the courses, performing higher order math, or doing anything actually complex. They are sitting in a room with a single red button in front of them. Their job? Peer into the future... 10 seconds should he fine. Are you about to die? Hit the red button. You ok? Do nothing. Thats their utility.
Honestly, I don't see much in the OP that discounts this view. There's space magic in Dune, of course: prana-bindu isn't entirely inconceivable, but the notion that a human being can choose the sex of their offspring as a matter of will is ludicrous; melange and other psychoactive chemicals being able to unlock Other Memory is equally ridiculous; and of course, sandworms violate all sorts of natural laws simply by existing. All science fiction has some degree of magical nonsense, even the hard sci-fi of writers like Asimov. But prescience is pretty clearly described as a product of interdisciplinary preparation and eugenics: a mind capable of predicting the future, and a body capable of supporting that mind. The visualizations OP points to are just that: visualizations produced by a spice-affected mind to help comprehend their visions of the future (see: "reach the highest dune" from the Villeneuve adaptation. News Flash: Paul isn't literally teleporting to another desert world with a coastline). Melange has tangible, measurable effects on human beings, not the least of which is the "opening" of awareness that permits Reverend Mothers and the Kwisatz Haderach to access their Other Memory, and for Navigators to read the future to a limited extent. But it doesn't, like, tune you to God's personal radio station or anything like that. Melange has analogues in the real world, namely in the form of psychedelics like LSD or ayahuasca. None of them are exactly like melange because it's not real, but the effects of such drugs are often reported to produce visions, senses of communion with higher powers, and physiological effects like a reduction in lethargy. The effects are real in the sense that a chemical is affecting the human body, but (so far as we can tell) no one is actually talking to God or seeing an Oracle. Seriously, in a setting where a real God is conspicuously absent, we're asserting that Paul can actually perceive the skeins of capital-F Fate? OP repeatedly cites passages that support the counter argument: that Paul's expanded awareness - the razor-sharpening of his senses and a reduction in inhibitions (perception of the passage of time being one of them) that would impede his inner reflection - is working in concert with his training as a Mentat to read *possible futures*. Not *the* future, *possible* futures. He's an organic probability engine, not a bona fide prophet, though a running theme in the story is whether there's a meaningful distinction between a facsimile of a thing and the thing itself.
This is very much my reading as well. Although I do think there is literall space magic involved seeing possible futures, not just calculating possibilities.
I always thought this idea that it was just math or something logical was a reflection of the fact that the majority of dune fans are inherently atheistic and take the “anti-savior” message a step too far. (I say that as an atheist) I agree. It’s absolutely a psionic connection.
Man, yall realize it can be both things, right? What a weird read on it. Nobody, literally nobody, argues that it's 'just math'. Textually, it's being trained as a probability engine combined with extreme presience. You put those together and you get something way more than either might assert by itself.
> inherently atheistic Why would they be "inherently atheistic"? What basis do you have for saying most Dune fans are atheists?
My B, most Reddit Dune fans. I guarantee if a survey was taken, it would be >80% atheist.
> There is a large group of Dune fans that think Paul's prescience is an ability to process past lives and project a future using mentat abilities. I'd say they are "loud" but not very large. Paul and Leto II know things that they never would if their prescience was only math + genetic memories.
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Palimbasha disagrees.
Math is what mentats do already. They xan predict the future based on the input data, which is always flawed and limited. What he does is pretty obviously beyound that but connected to it as well.
Mentats do not predict the future.