Chapter 01

[SandChigger]

How do you know the newborn was dreaming of falling? How would a newborn even know what...oh my gawd, you've done dropped the baby?!



Experience gets hardwired into the individual brain, naturally. But my point was that that structure does not then get copied into the germline DNA. Anyone who wants to claim it does has the burden of explaining the mechanism by which it occurs.

Yes?

[Freakzilla]

What about other animals? You can't say that there aren't things that animals are hardwired to know from birth that they aren't taught.

What about idiot savants?

How does someone know how to play classical piano without ever having had a lesson, or other such feats?

These are ancestral memories, IMO.

If I could tell you how the process worked, I'd be in another line of business.

[Freakzilla]

And how many kids to you know that learned the hard way to respect a flame? Was it the actual pain of the flame, or the shock to the expectations that the kid has when it touches a flame, expecting it to be something other than a lesson in pain.

For one of my sons, I think it was the six foot flame consuming his matress, along with the long talk the fire marshal had with him after arriving with fire trucks and ambulances.

Not to mention me kicking the five-year-old boy out of the house and having his granny come get him.



I still see that fire when I close my eyes.

[orald]

*Runs rampant with burning matches* Muahahahahaha!!!

I don't think DNA can code actual memories of an individual in any way.
You brain just doesn't touch your sperm/eggs in any way(well, except for releasing hormones to regulate production/release in said gonades)

Instinct is a long long way from knowing "zomg, I waz totally born in a yurt in a horse-dung covered plain in a planet that no longer exists, thankfully".

[A Thing of Eternity]

What about other animals? You can't say that there aren't things that animals are hardwired to know from birth that they aren't taught.

What about idiot savants?

How does someone know how to play classical piano without ever having had a lesson, or other such feats?

These are ancestral memories, IMO.

If I could tell you how the process worked, I'd be in another line of business.

The piano playing savants learn it, just very quickly. They just have perfect memory, so they hear a piece, decide they want to play piano, walk to the piano, press each key once to learn what key makes what note and away they go. Even better is they see someone playing a piano, then they can probably just do it instantly.

I don't know about nest building and such in animals, that's a bit odd to me too, but savants just have certain parts of their minds that work extremely well. They aren't born knowing anything.

[Dune Nerd]

How do you know the newborn was dreaming of falling? How would a newborn even know what...oh my gawd, you've done dropped the baby?!



Experience gets hardwired into the individual brain, naturally. But my point was that that structure does not then get copied into the germline DNA. Anyone who wants to claim it does has the burden of explaining the mechanism by which it occurs.

Yes?

It is the same reaction that I have when I dream of falling, the shutter and arms going up then I wake up and go right back to sleep.

I wasn't disagreeing with your overall statement just the part about new parents and it only being an endearing quality.

[SandChigger]

Ahp. You just have to remember that my first response when an infant I'm holding does ANYTHING is to throw them at someone else.

[Dune Nerd]

^^^
I will keep that in mind next time.

[SimonH]

What about other mechanisms?

Is there any way that an baby in utero could pick up instincts from the mother? I can't think of how, but this is the most obvious alternative to genetic memory

[SandChigger]

The health, diet, and I think even mental state of the mother can affect the development of the fetus...but more than that?

Infants can hear sounds while in the womb and actually acclimate to the rhythms of (what will become) their mother tongue.

[SimonH]

yep - I've got a little boy about two weeks from popping out. I'm trying to talk to him heaps and make sure he gets used to all of my noise.

hopefully I won't have to be quiet when he wants to sleep. Am I dreaming? Yes probably

[orald]

I propose we have a tape chanting "siaynoq!" for every soon-to-be mother to strap around her belly 24/7.

[Dune Nerd]

yep - I've got a little boy about two weeks from popping out. I'm trying to talk to him heaps and make sure he gets used to all of my noise.

hopefully I won't have to be quiet when he wants to sleep. Am I dreaming? Yes probably

Congrats, my baby girl is now 6 days old, and she certainly does recognize my wife's voice, my voice, and my son's voice. As soon as she hears anyone of these three she quiets down. No doubt in my mind that she could hear inside.

She also would kick anytime I would start talking to her when she was still in the womb.

[orald]

She also would kick anytime I would start talking to her when she was still in the womb.

That was trying to run away I presume...

[SimonH]

yep - I've got a little boy about two weeks from popping out. I'm trying to talk to him heaps and make sure he gets used to all of my noise.

hopefully I won't have to be quiet when he wants to sleep. Am I dreaming? Yes probably

Congrats, my baby girl is now 6 days old, and she certainly does recognize my wife's voice, my voice, and my son's voice. As soon as she hears anyone of these three she quiets down. No doubt in my mind that she could hear inside.

She also would kick anytime I would start talking to her when she was still in the womb.

thanks - congrats yourself

I seem to have a calming effect on him in the womb, hopefully it continues!

[Simon]

Congratulations to both of you gentlemen!

Now about chapter 1:

I've always liked this opening. It really is enticing and mysterious. The whole intro to the universe and especially "the box" were just excellent (not to mention, wildly original). I love how it leaves you wondering WTF is up with this guys mother! (assuming a first time read).
Though I know the RM is on Spice I always picture Mohaim as being exceedingly old...

Same with Shaddam, despite the knowledge that he's 70 with the looks of a 30 something year old I tend to lean toward a graying Shaddam. I thought the suggestion at DN of Christopher Lee as Shaddam to be a cool one, though I know it just can't be if Berg is going to stick to the facts (as he should!)

[DuneFishUK]

From page 1:

The old woman was a witch shadow -- hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels

.... Is that a haiku?

[Lisan Al-Gaib]

From page 1:

The old woman was a witch shadow -- hair like matted spiderwebs, hooded 'round darkness of features, eyes like glittering jewels

.... Is that a haiku?

I always picture Mohiam as a very old woman (with more than 100 years), and because of that, she would never be able to be mother of Jessica (as the KJA&BH believes). However the scene when Mohiam screams that Alia is in her mind always made me believe she could possibly be the GRANDMOTHER of Jessica.

Well, Mohiam being the grandmother would explain that scene and wouldn't interfere on the cannon information as Tanidius Nerus being the real Jessica's Mother.

[Schu]

Some things I noted:

Paul: green eyes like old duke, deep black hair like Leto I, browline of the Baron

Mohiam: Bulky figure, glistening eyes, pale gums, silvery teeth that flashed as she spoke.

Nerve induction box does not permit light inside. Some funky pain-indicing electro=magnetic field? Or something incidental, made so the box looks scarier?

Bene Gesserit purpose is politics: to sift through people to find the humans, to set them free.

"but that only allowed other men with machines to enslave them" of course heavily implies non-Omnious view of duniverse.

Mohiam's suggested improvement of the "commandment" about not making a machine in the likeness of a man's mind, changing to human and counterfeiting, implies humans (as opposed to non-human people) are beyond just mere calculation and reasoning: Consider the human vs. animal thing: animal does the thing that is logically the most selfish thing to do, but the human removes a threat to it's kind - beyond mere selfish logic, it's survival of the species rather than survival of the individual.

The bene gesserit directive to separate human from animal stock for breeding purposes conflicted with Paul's sense for rightness and reminded him of "terrible purpose".

Considering context in later books, I considered this as Paul accepting this as a necessary evil, but only until humans could indeed be set free, and they would be set free in the golden path, which, after all, was his ultimate terrible purpose.

It's said that the truthsayer drug improves ability to detect falsehood and to see into the body's memory. I'm not sure whether or not this passage implies that all RM's are truthsayers, but it certainly implies that it is a way to improve.

[Freakzilla]

I believe Mohiam says that some people find truthsense in the drug, or something similar.

[Schu]

She doesn't actually talk about truthsaying, but she does say that truthsayers look in the body's memory, truthsayers look down female avenues, etc.. That kinda implies that all RM's are truthsayers, but only weakly.

I guess it also kinda implies that people willing to try the drug may need to have some degree of truthsense in the first place, maybe that's why she was excited that Paul being able to tell truth.

[HoryThory]

I can't remember! .. but I know it doesn't mean he's in two/many places physically, but that he is mentally in more than one place.

Do you think Frank was cusping on Quantum theory here? Was Quantum Physics around in the late 50s when Frank started writing Dune?

[SandRider]

yes & yes

[HoryThory]

I assume that Quantum theory was in its infancy then?

Thanks and Thanks.

[Schu]

Quantum physics was in its infancy back in the 1900s actually. All the features of quantum physics that are known by the layman (schroedinger's cat, heisenberg's uncertainty principle, photoelectric effect, wave-particle duality etc.) were all known before dune was started.