Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Serkanner wrote:

dm1215 wrote:

orald wrote:

Spice Grandson wrote:Death of reason: Meaning his reason for being would die out, too. I'm going to step on some OH toes here, but I think this means his Golden Path might die off, too -- after all, what was Leto's "reason" for living? Something to think about.

I think you're close to something, but then you go the other way around.
The GP just can't fail anymore.

I think maybe "reason" was, like you said, his reason to stay around- i.e the GP.
But once humanity became "infinite" it was completed, there was no more reason for him to be.

This might also mean the death of all but one of the sandworms, which the BG suspected of guiding and locking the old empire in his vision.
Once there was no real reason for them to stay(early on in the famine times they were needed for their spice, until the BT came along with artificial one and Ix with nav' machines), their death came, the death of Leto's reason to stick around.

I have a question about this. More like a comment. I felt that the Golden Path was never completely secure. It's just the way I see Frank working his stories. He never secures anything. Not his characters or any of their plans. Bit of an anarchist from what I can tell.

Deja vu anybody?

hehehehe...

"Lets control the world, Pink!"

No, let's make it Blue.

Blue brings out the gold flecks in my eyes.

As i`ve already posted, although i dont think the golden path is ever super-secure for all time. You cant cite near-infinity of the human population as a reason for security and then deny people the same argument of infinity when it comes to threats.

Infinity divided by infinity is 1.

(I have no idea if that is actually true but it serves my point)

Hopefully Mastah B will jump in and expand on or correct this, but I seem to remember seeing somewhere that the majority of species, if they're lucky, get about a million years or so before they go extinct and disappear.

Either way, humanity will one day cease to exist. Period. Both in the Duniverse and in the real universe. If lucky, it will evolve into something new and continue in some form. If not, well....so?

Humanity in the Dunivese isn't infinite. (That makes no sense in any universe, even a fictional one.) It could be destroyed by a series of completely random, unconnected events. So what?

Leto doesn't say how far into the future his furthest peek was, but he was satisfied that he had done all he could for as far as he did look. Humanity continues within the space and time he foresaw.

Unless we're going to fanfick up to the bleeding heat death of the Duniverse, isn't that enough?

Universal prescience is an empty myth. Only the most powerful local currents of Time may be foretold. But in an infinite universe, local can be so gigantic that your mind shrinks from it.
~Leto II

loremaster wrote:Infinity divided by infinity is 1.

(I have no idea if that is actually true but it serves my point)

It's not true at all. Infinity divided by infinity doesn't even make sense. Infinity isn't a number, so you can't multiply, divide, add, or subtract it to or from anything.

There's more than one degree of infinity, no? (There are infinite integers, but then there's an infinite number of fractional values between any two integers as well, so when you take the entire number line, considering both fractional and integer values, isn't that infinity greater than the other two, since it logically contains "more" numbers? )

I don't know why people would assume humanity would spread out in a sphere. It would be random dispersion if they were actually Scattering with spacefolding. It's not that humanity is infinite, it's that they're all over the place, hiding in nooks and crannies, and there's no way to find them. Remember how hard it was for the Honored Matres with their overwhelming numbers to find Chapterhouse, and they were limited to one galaxy. Try searching the entire universe for every human being alive. No number of searchers would be sufficient.

Loremaster wrote:

As i`ve already posted, although i dont think the golden path is ever super-secure for all time. You cant cite near-infinity of the human population as a reason for security and then deny people the same argument of infinity when it comes to threats.

I don't think it's correct to state that the GP is "insecure" because technically all humans in all places will eventually go extinct / evolve into something else. That's a pretty ambitious defintion of the GP - "humans forever" - those kinds of statements in the books were probably meant to be a bit exaggerated, for effect. I think you have a slightly off definition of the GP in your mind.

The GP plan was to disperse humanity up to the point where no one threat could ever be of consequence to the entirety of humanity. I don't think it was to literally make humanity infinite, as that's clearly impossible, and I think LetoII can be forgiven for exaggerating a bit to explain the idea to regular people. From that point of view the GP was a complete sucess. What hypothetical threat could ever arise against all of humanity? None whatsoever.

And God Leto does say his view of humanity is much much broader than the BG's. I think he considers futars human too, and would consider pretty much anything humans will evolve(or engineered) to.

Phaedrus wrote:

loremaster wrote:Infinity divided by infinity is 1.

(I have no idea if that is actually true but it serves my point)

It's not true at all. Infinity divided by infinity doesn't even make sense. Infinity isn't a number, so you can't multiply, divide, add, or subtract it to or from anything.

There's more than one degree of infinity, no? (There are infinite integers, but then there's an infinite number of fractional values between any two integers as well, so when you take the entire number line, considering both fractional and integer values, isn't that infinity greater than the other two, since it logically contains "more" numbers? )

I don't know why people would assume humanity would spread out in a sphere. It would be random dispersion if they were actually Scattering with spacefolding. It's not that humanity is infinite, it's that they're all over the place, hiding in nooks and crannies, and there's no way to find them. Remember how hard it was for the Honored Matres with their overwhelming numbers to find Chapterhouse, and they were limited to one galaxy. Try searching the entire universe for every human being alive. No number of searchers would be sufficient.

Exactly. And perhaps the ONLY way to achieve such a thing would be through prescience. Leto II took care of that as well, via the Siona gene and No-technology IMHO.

Infinity divided by infinity is undefined/indeterminate. Although if you bring out limits and calculus it can equal 1 or any other number for that matter.

Illogical Banana wrote:Infinity divided by infinity is undefined/indeterminate. Although if you bring out limits and calculus it can equal 1 or any other number for that matter.

If you want to get technical, that's if a value is approaching infinity.

Phaedrus wrote:

Illogical Banana wrote:Infinity divided by infinity is undefined/indeterminate. Although if you bring out limits and calculus it can equal 1 or any other number for that matter.

If you want to get technical, that's if a value is approaching infinity.

Doesnt this support my argument? When im talking about "infinity" I'm talking about the really really big number humanity has reached, starting from 1 (well, 2... ).

Not the infinity you cant reach from 1. Humanity will never be infinite, by definition, in a finite universe.

What i meant would be better put as:

Really big number of humans/really big number of threats

is equal to:

smaller number of humans/smaller number of threats.


Which links perfectly into what ATOE said (and chig) - I agree, no ONE threat will ever catch all of humanity (short of the big crunch ). But loigcally the more people there are, the more threats they will encounter/create themselves. But lots might. (the universe where all these threats DO happen is what i refer to when i say it COULD, potentially, end humanity.)

I think there's so many assumptions people make about infinity that its hard to discuss this, - like phaedrus' assumption i meant actual infinity, rather than approaching infinity/really big.

P.S> Agree 100% about the "why would we expand as a sphere" comment

No, because it's not a constant. Humanity is constantly expanding. Scatterings are constantly happening within the Scattering.

Remember, the BG had years to scatter, and they ended up taking the HMs on headfirst. If they'd just bided their time and waited for the HMs to find them, they'd have had plenty of time to scatter all over the place. The HMs would have never found all those scattered BG planets, with as long as it took to find Chapterhouse.

The same thing would be happening all over the Scattering. Any threat would be slowed by the search, and the people being hunted could just Scatter all over again.

An unidentifiable ship in an unidentifiable universe can't be found.

Phaedrus that is one handsome avatar.

I think a better way to describe The Scattering than humankind becoming infinite would be to say that humanity is continuously expanding.

Sure, it can't be infinite because all the stars will eventually burn out and nothing will be left. But other than that, Humanity has a better chance of surviving as a species or as whatever it evolves into and having a chance to fufill it's destiny scattered throughout the universe rather than huddled together in one stagnant empire.

But then again, we can't see the edge of the universe, I think it's presumsuous to think we know that it is not infinite.

loremaster wrote:

Phaedrus wrote:

Illogical Banana wrote:Infinity divided by infinity is undefined/indeterminate. Although if you bring out limits and calculus it can equal 1 or any other number for that matter.

If you want to get technical, that's if a value is approaching infinity.

Doesnt this support my argument? When im talking about "infinity" I'm talking about the really really big number humanity has reached, starting from 1 (well, 2... ).

Not the infinity you cant reach from 1. Humanity will never be infinite, by definition, in a finite universe.

What i meant would be better put as:

Really big number of humans/really big number of threats

is equal to:

smaller number of humans/smaller number of threats.


Which links perfectly into what ATOE said (and chig) - I agree, no ONE threat will ever catch all of humanity (short of the big crunch ). But loigcally the more people there are, the more threats they will encounter/create themselves. But lots might. (the universe where all these threats DO happen is what i refer to when i say it COULD, potentially, end humanity.)

I think there's so many assumptions people make about infinity that its hard to discuss this, - like phaedrus' assumption i meant actual infinity, rather than approaching infinity/really big.

P.S> Agree 100% about the "why would we expand as a sphere" comment

This doesn't support the GP being insecure. Like I said, it was done, over with, finito - Once humanity was scattered it's purpose hade been acheived.

I always though of it as a secret joke by FH, because it's not really a path, it's getting kicked off a path. Kicked so far off the path of vulnerability that humanity can never get back onto it again. (That's my take anyways, feel free to beat it to death)

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I always though of it as a secret joke by FH, because it's not really a path, it's getting kicked off a path. Kicked so far off the path of vulnerability that humanity can never get back onto it again. (That's my take anyways, feel free to beat it to death)

I agree and it's one the new authors obviously didn't get.

Freakzilla wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I always though of it as a secret joke by FH, because it's not really a path, it's getting kicked off a path. Kicked so far off the path of vulnerability that humanity can never get back onto it again. (That's my take anyways, feel free to beat it to death)

I agree and it's one the new authors obviously didn't get.

i just want to clarify this:

i'm not condoning what B H and K J A have done with the gp either.

loremaster wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I always though of it as a secret joke by FH, because it's not really a path, it's getting kicked off a path. Kicked so far off the path of vulnerability that humanity can never get back onto it again. (That's my take anyways, feel free to beat it to death)

I agree and it's one the new authors obviously didn't get.

i just want to clarify this:

i'm not condoning what B H and K J A have done with the gp either.

Don't worry, I didn't think that was what you were saying. I'm just debating the nit-picky details.

Hey gang--Help me out...

I am almost done with GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE. And so far I have never put together why Leto II was a tyrant. Can somebody help me?

Matt

mjb0123 wrote:Hey gang--Help me out...

I am almost done with GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE. And so far I have never put together why Leto II was a tyrant. Can somebody help me?

Matt

Well from Leto's point of view, he wasn't.
However from most of the rest of the galaxy, it is because of the dictatorial restrictions he imposed, the most devastating of which is the restriction of spice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant

In modern usage a tyrant is a single ruler holding vast, if not absolute power through a state or in an organization. The term carries modern connotations of a harsh and cruel ruler who places his or her own interests or the interests of a small oligarchy over the best interests of the general population which the tyrant governs or controls.

He appeared to be a tyrant to the general population, how could they understand his GP? He wasn't really a tyrant since he had the best interests of the people at heart.

Yeah, he wanted to strengthen the species with "cruel love", to help it survive in the long term.

You know, "If it don t kill you, it only makes you stronger."

Mandy wrote:He appeared to be a tyrant to the general population, how could they understand his GP? He wasn't really a tyrant since he had the best interests of the people at heart.

He WAS a Tyrant, but he was doing it for good reason. That doesn't mean his rule was any less tyrannical and dictatorial.

To answer the above question more directly(Why was Leto II a Tyrant?)...

He didn't allow people to travel. The Guild was only allowed to go where he told it to go. People were confined to one planet, and more often, one village. There was peace and prosperity, but no freedom whatsoever. People weren't allowed to make choices for themselves. He also had a hydraulic despotism type of control over the spice. Since he alone had spice and could administer it, he completely controlled anyone who depended on it. Basically, he allowed nothing to happen that wasn't in line with his plans for the human race, and thus, he was a tyrant.

Since no one understood that he was doing it in order to ensure the survival of the human race, he was considered a Tyrant by those who wanted freedom. The "normal" people of his reign, of course, probably worshiped him as a god who brought peace and prosperity. It was a limited few, such as the Guild, the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu, and the Ixians who considered Leto a tyrant, because he took their power away from them.

He wasn't placing his interests above that of the people though.