Duncan's Partial Siona Gene


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AnEhforanEh
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by AnEhforanEh »

Godemperorjames wrote:I think of a dimension as an axis of description. like x,y, and z.
And the same thing is true of time. Time is a dimention we simply cant describe accurately in a three dimentional way. If you were a 2-dimentional being, living on the X and Y, how would you describe something moving along the Z? You'd have to use abstracts, which is how we describe time.
I like your point with orbitals and i've been thinking (no mathematics so i can't really understand. I'm a bio major lol) about the position of electrons based on our understanding of timespace. Our idea of movement makes no sense within the context of orbitals and electrons. Like they will probably be there? But they could not probably be anywhere! Like...I can't wrap my mind around it. They aren't orbiting like a planet or something like that. They are there then not there but also there?
I think what you're referring to is Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle, which states that a quanta can be both a particle and a wave simultaneously. An electron is really a field of vibrating energy, but we can measure its "position," in which case it acts like a particle (i.e., we can shoot a "single" electron out of a particle cannon).
edit: i misspoke slightly. The particle-wave duality was proposed by de Broglie (wavelength=Plancks constant/momentum). The Uncertainty Principle deals with inaccuracies in measuring either position or momentum of a particle. Oops.
Like what is the point of defining movement as along x,y,z, and time? The electron would be there then there probably but it seems like time doesn't influence this? like it is probably there any given moment and probably not a place any given moment. But it isn't like the electron is "moving" in a typical sense. Of course it has to be moving, but like....how? Timespace cant be applied how we normally think about it since the electron isn't there then there. All these things are part of the same phenomenon. The question is what is the true nature of the deeper phenomenon!
This might be said of all matter. If particles are also waves of energy, then maybe everything is a wave of energy spread throughout Time. We, as thinking being with a need to quantify everything, see ourselves as "traveling" through time because we are effectively measuring our position in Time. In other words, everything that ever was or will be is happening concurrently; we can only perceive a small bit of it (the Now) at a time.
Like, if we froze time somehow, where would the electron be? Wouldn't it be probably in all of those places and also not?
Um, no. It would be wherever we measure it to be. But if time was frozen we wouldnt be able to measure anything because there would be no motion, including ourselves.
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Freakzilla
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by Freakzilla »

This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves and
motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to understanding.
You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be seen, cannot be
heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. It is the ultimate
void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms may be projected. You
have only one awareness here -- the screen of the magi: Imagination! Here, you
learn what it is to be human. You are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes
and systems, an organizer of chaos.

-The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives

:-P
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Godemperorjames
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by Godemperorjames »

Ah, Freakzilla putting us back on track! I really like that quote!
AnEhforanEh
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by AnEhforanEh »

Godemperorjames wrote:I really like that quote!
Oh? Do you mind explaining it to me?
After all, I'm a fukken idiot...
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by Godemperorjames »

georgiedenbro wrote:Just think of an 'orbital' as being an oscillating unit, rather than a bunch of 'things' that do strange things. You remove your headache that way. That there are 'little things flying about' is merely an interpretation of quantum, and not an empirical observation. And yes, spacetime would certainly be affected by anything massive, including electrons. It's just that quantum gravity is needed to discuss that, which we don't have yet as a formalized system.
I think of them in terms of orbitals too! I dont think they are things we could see for lots of reasons. But if somehow we looked down theoretically, would the electron be a probabilty and not in a spot like a thing. Like it is in those places probably but can be in other places too probably so it can jump gaps theoretically right?

So i dont think the electron is a thing that is like how we typically thing of things. And how do does the electron traverse the time axis or is placed on it. Im not pretending to really know any of this stuff! Just interesting thoughts i wanted to hear your opinion on!
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AnEhforanEh
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by AnEhforanEh »

Godemperorjames wrote: I think of them in terms of orbitals too! I dont think they are things we could see for lots of reasons. But if somehow we looked down theoretically, would the electron be a probabilty and not in a spot like a thing. Like it is in those places probably but can be in other places too probably so it can jump gaps theoretically right?
Look into Schrodinger's wave equation. It gives us the wave function, which maps the probability distribution of an electron cloud (or any wave form).
So i dont think the electron is a thing that is like how we typically thing of things.
That's everything at the quantum level. It's like a whole different universe.
And how do does the electron traverse the time axis or is places on it.
The same way anything traverses time. You might as well be asking "how does it go up?" Its self-explanatory.
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leto247
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by leto247 »

Hello, it´s been some time since I wrote anything around here but regarding this matter I wanted to share with you some paragraphs from the ebook “Frank Herbert: The Works” by Bob R. Bogle; which by the way is highly recommendable:
Postulate 4. The nature of consciousness is the ability to collapse wave functions. Non-conscious objects lack free will. Conscious entities do not. The past being immutable and the present illusory, it follows that consciousness is intractable from multidimensional futures. Consciousness cannot exist without futures to act upon.
Thus, the author says (the underlined parts are mine):
Anytime Herbert is talking about consciousness, he is also talking about spacetime. It is better to consider organic brains as physical nodes associated with individual examples of consciousness than as "seats" of contained consciousness.

An Other Memory persona is a coherent, active personality. It is not a sterile, emotionless spreadsheet to which a Reverend Mother can refer and reel off the pedantic minutiae from the life of an ancestral individual. To achieve this degree of soulful eccentricity in an Other Memory, a conscious mind in a living human must, in real time, holographically and indelibly encode (etch) the entire spectrum of consciousness experienced (sensory input and cognitive processing) at every instant[59].

The infinite design problem forbids Other Memory from being inherited piecemeal and stored physically in cells. Storage and maintenance of memory in molecular form would overwhelm intracellular resources. Admittedly, Herbert's handle on biological principles is always weak, and this is the Achilles' heel in his fiction. Yet Herbert identifies and acknowledges the infinite design problem himself in Destination: Void [10; 90-1]. He was fully aware that cellular Other Memory was forbidden.

The fusion of mind and spacetime arising from Herbert's conception of multidimensional futures points directly to the Other Memory-aware possessing consciously retrievable address portals for accessing the holographic patterns of their ancestors' minds, indelibly encoded in spacetime.

"Other Memory" is not memory. Memories are static reconstructions of past events that degrade notoriously with the passage of time. Ancestral personas encountered in Other Memory are dynamic and retain the personality of the original. They behave, expressing their personalities. They are aware of current events (as experienced by the "host"), and they suffer original thoughts they never had during life.

Other Memory personas are ghostly apparitions. Herbert insinuates that spacetime is indistinguishable from the minds of everyone who has ever lived, distributed holographically through all corners of the universe.

Presumably all humans access these ancestral specters subconsciously, and this "racial memory" influences the behavior of humanity with deep, subconscious impulses. But the Bene Gesserit elevate the system to conscious awareness[60] by virtue of the Spice Agony. The fact that the portals provide access only to ancestors demonstrates that a genetic component is involved.
He also says:
In Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune we learn Bene Gesserit sisters are capable of deliberate Sharing of their Other Memory reservoirs. No mention is ever made of having multiple copies of single individuals in Other Memory, which again supports Other Memory as a holographic addressing system rather than a static, physical memory storage system: single addresses of Other Memory personas are retained, not multiple copies of that persona.
Finally, regarding the problem of the missing cells of Duncan he says:
How is it possible that Duncan could lack cells from some of his previous incarnations and yet contain all of their memories? Again we posit that human consciousness etches its experience holographically in spacetime, and the cells contain some addressing mechanism for that "Other Memory." Restored gholas, in essence, access the Other Memory of their original selves. In this last Duncan Idaho ghola, the cells are able to access even the missing Other Memory-selves, perhaps because the "addresses" are very similar. After all, no genetic changes are expected among multiple generations of clones, or gholas . . .
Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with this theory, mainly because I always assumed genetic memory to be just that… “genetic”. But I cannot deny that this idea opens very interesting possibilities at least for me –insert blowing mind gif here-
Know, O Prince, that a beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that between the years of the rise of the Guild and The Scattering, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the universe ruled by the Padishah Emperor. Hither came Conan Atreides, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a mentat, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the universe under his sandaled feet.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by georgiedenbro »

Great find, Leto, thanks for posting it.
leto247 wrote:
An Other Memory persona is a coherent, active personality. It is not a sterile, emotionless spreadsheet to which a Reverend Mother can refer and reel off the pedantic minutiae from the life of an ancestral individual. To achieve this degree of soulful eccentricity in an Other Memory, a conscious mind in a living human must, in real time, holographically and indelibly encode (etch) the entire spectrum of consciousness experienced (sensory input and cognitive processing) at every instant[59].

The infinite design problem forbids Other Memory from being inherited piecemeal and stored physically in cells. Storage and maintenance of memory in molecular form would overwhelm intracellular resources. Admittedly, Herbert's handle on biological principles is always weak, and this is the Achilles' heel in his fiction. Yet Herbert identifies and acknowledges the infinite design problem himself in Destination: Void [10; 90-1]. He was fully aware that cellular Other Memory was forbidden.

The fusion of mind and spacetime arising from Herbert's conception of multidimensional futures points directly to the Other Memory-aware possessing consciously retrievable address portals for accessing the holographic patterns of their ancestors' minds, indelibly encoded in spacetime.
This is what I suspected before. The reason is, there is a piece of text from Destination: Void which reads as a statement by the author rather than merely someone's opinion. Flannery has a revelation towards the end when he 'awakens' and states clearly that he realizes the entire universe is holographic, with the smallest part of the universe encoding the whole. Other text in the novel (most notably the epigraphs) support this claim as being 'true.'

For anyone who's read Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" series, the exact same physics principles underlie the book. They are likewise being currently espoused as a formal system by an amateur physicist named Nassim Haramein. Having researched this for some months it seems these principles may not be 'new' but rather are possibly derived from an esoteric 'spiritual' tradition. Some physicists in the 20th century such as Bucky Fuller also hinted at this sort of thing.

All this to say, this explanation seems to suggest Frank did intend a 'flagging' system within the cells, where the routing information, if you will, is there, but where the actual data is encoded into space itself. Memory would be local, but ancestral and ghola memory would be non-local. Duncan seems to fit into this insofar as splicing in DNA from other Duncans added the 'flags' to those memories to his own cells. Haramein's current thesis is that these flags are, in fact, to be found in the cellular microtubules, and that these function as a type of resonator that 'picks up' signals, like a radio. The signals consist of all the data that ever was, and in addition all the people that ever were. I'm not entirely sure what Haramein says about whether the 'future' is encoded there as well; I suspect not. This may have been conjecture on Frank's part, assuming he is drawing from the same body of knowledge as this tradition I spoke of.
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AnEhforanEh
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by AnEhforanEh »

Now that is very interesting. I'm sure I share your love/hate relationship. Mainly because it doesn't jive with how the book portrays OM. For example, if OM were truly a non-localized holographic overlay throughout spacetime then any given persona would gain new experience/memories from every RM that has that persona. And as such, a RM would be able to safari through that OM to learn any of the other RM's experiences.

We don't see that. Instead, we see that each persona is localized within each RM, and seperate from any other incarnation. Presumably, if two RM with the same OM persona Share they don't gain two versions of the same persona; the experiences simply merge. This is actually exactly how Duncan/Hayt describes his awakening.

Incidently, those excerpts contain perhaps the best explanation I've heard for Duncan remembering his lost lives. Ohh, the dilemma.
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leto247
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by leto247 »

Thank you, georgiedenbro. The truth is that I really enjoyed some of the ideas in that book and I have been wanting to share them here for some time now.
Actually, the author also relates his holographic memory theory to Destination: Void:
Flattery . . . closed his eyes, conjured up the image of the sacred graphic imprinted on his cell in quarters . . . and Flattery's mental image of the sacred graphic took on motion. The field of serenity and sacred symbols dissolved into writhing atoms, drew a new pattern like the outline of a great river with its watershed . . . All men are parts of the total stream, he thought. We are tributaries – and our minds are tributaries, and our most private thoughts. Every pattern in the universe contributes to the whole – some gushing like a freshet and some no more than a single touch of dew. All structure is an expression of the same law.It was holographic – he saw that. The essential elements of the whole were carried in the smallest part. From the grain of sand you could project the universe. It could very well be the most elemental law of this universe . . . . . . Timberlake appeared to him . . . somehow dead. He moved, but his eyes behind the faceplate were like holes in skull sockets. Each movement was the sticklike articulation of a skeleton . . . He pulled himself upright against the stanchion, screamed: "You're dead! Zombies! You're already dead! Zombies!" [10; 231-3]
He then also adds:
"A machine can reproduce any form of behavior," Bickel said. "We can engineer this device to satisfy any given input-output specifications. It'll behave anyway we want under any specified circumstances . . . Specified environment and behavior – that's deterministic. The manufacturer is still in control. What's worse, it requires a completely detailed memory – everything in the machine's past has to be immediate . . . right there and now! Memory load gets bigger and bigger every second. And it's all present and immediate. And that throws you into an infinite-design problem . . . We build for a random inhibitory pattern in the net – behavior that follows probability requirements . . . A behavior pattern that results from built-in misfunction."The way this ship was programmed to behave for us, she thought."Deterministic behavior from unreliable elements," she said. And she sensed Flattery's hand in this, an argument, a gentle nudge. [10; 90-1][105]

[105] This concept of the infinite design problem – absolutely critical to an understanding of much of his fiction – demonstrates that Herbert was well aware of the impossibility of actually encoding any single person's memory into the physical structure of his own cells – much less his entire genetic history encountered as Other Memory in Dune. Other Memory must have been stored elsewhere, neither objective nor subjective but a relationship, presumably etched holographically into spacetime.
Know, O Prince, that a beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that between the years of the rise of the Guild and The Scattering, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the universe ruled by the Padishah Emperor. Hither came Conan Atreides, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a mentat, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the universe under his sandaled feet.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by georgiedenbro »

AnEhforanEh wrote: We don't see that. Instead, we see that each persona is localized within each RM, and seperate from any other incarnation.
Are you sure about that? I mean, really sure? If the OM was localized it would be subject to mutation and signal degradation (with each transmission of memories). And yet we're told more or less repeatedly that the memories are reliable and complete. This itself doesn't jive with them being a physical system, which cannot realistically remain identical over time. I see no evidence from the books that OM degrades with time or that older memories are less reliable than newer ones. This, to me, reinforces the idea that it's non-local and that every RM who has memories of a given person (i.e. the flags pointing to those memories) accesses the same non-local data. It also helps us solve the problematic telepathy issue in how the RM's do the sharing.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by leto247 »

Right? I also like this theory because it is also useful to explain some misterious powers of Alia:
"That child is an abomination!" the old woman . . . pointed a finger at Alia. "Get out of my mind!""T-P?" the Emperor whispered. He snapped his attention back to Alia. "By the Great Mother!""You don't understand. Majesty," the old woman said. "Not telepathy. She's in my mind. She's like the ones before me, the ones who gave me their memories. She stands in my mind! She cannot be there, but she is!" . . . "You babble, old woman," Alia said. "You don't know how it was, yet you rattle on like a purblind fool." Alia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and held it.The old Reverend Mother groaned and staggered.Alia opened her eyes. "That is how it was," she said. "A cosmic accident . . . and you played your part in it." . . . "What is happening here?" the Emperor demanded. "Child, can you truly project your thoughts into the mind of another?""That's not how it is at all," Alia said. "Unless I'm born as you, I cannot think as you." [13; 462][56]
So Alia is manipulating Other Memory – she has not "moved ahead in time" to plant a message for Paul's eyes only. Reverend Mothers – and the Kwisatz Haderach – have access to the personas of their ancestors. But although Alia is an ancestor of neither Paul nor Mohiam, she is present as an Other Memory temporarily available to both of them. Furthermore, the living and breathing Alia is able to cause her Other Memory projections to speak within the minds of both Paul and Mohiam: support for the notion that Other Memory is not genetically encoded, but rather represents access to a holographic universe (see §4.01.05).
Know, O Prince, that a beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that between the years of the rise of the Guild and The Scattering, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the universe ruled by the Padishah Emperor. Hither came Conan Atreides, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a mentat, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the universe under his sandaled feet.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by Godemperorjames »

Ohh your point with Alia is very interesting. What are your thoughts on the idea that seeing into no-ships is related to being outside of time?
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leto247
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by leto247 »

Thank you, Godemperorjames, although I cannot take merit for the idea because as I said comes from that book by Bob R. Bogle, not from me.

I´m also sorry to say that neither can I connect with the idea of Duncan being “outside of time”, either considering time as a four dimension solid from where Duncan could be outside of it or as him being free of a cause-effect relation, neither of those cases seem to be happening in my opinion.
Know, O Prince, that a beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that between the years of the rise of the Guild and The Scattering, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the universe ruled by the Padishah Emperor. Hither came Conan Atreides, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a mentat, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the universe under his sandaled feet.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by Freakzilla »

I'm going to have to get this ebook.
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leto247
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by leto247 »

Yeah, It´s really interesting. After the disappointment that meant for me “Wisdom of the Sand: Philosophy and Frank Herbert's 'Dune'” I was reluctant to read another book of ramblings about dune so soon, but the ability that the author shows in this one to establish links between ideas and concepts in all the works of Frank Herbert really kept me interested.
Know, O Prince, that a beginning is a very delicate time. Know then, that between the years of the rise of the Guild and The Scattering, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the universe ruled by the Padishah Emperor. Hither came Conan Atreides, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a mentat, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the universe under his sandaled feet.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by georgiedenbro »

Ugh, I don't have a Kindle. Is there any other way I can read an e-version of a book? Is it a simple file I can just read on a PC?
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by Sardaukar Capt »

georgiedenbro wrote:Ugh, I don't have a Kindle. Is there any other way I can read an e-version of a book? Is it a simple file I can just read on a PC?
Amazon has a free Kindle for PC desktop app you can download to read any Kindle book on. If you have a tablet or smartphone, there are also free Kindle apps for those. So you don't need to own the Kindle e-ink e-reader device to read Kindle books.
The name Atreides was also consciously chosen. It is the family name of Agamemnon. Says Herbert, "I wanted a sense of monumental aristocracy, but with tragedy hanging over them--and in our culture, Agamemnon personifies that."
Frank Herbert by Tim O'Reilly
http://tim.oreilly.com/herbert/

Ghanima said. "We Atreides go back to Agamemnon..."
Distracted, Irulan asked: "Who's Agamemnon?"

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

WTF? A BG forgets the Titans?! :)
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by AnEhforanEh »

georgiedenbro wrote:
AnEhforanEh wrote: We don't see that. Instead, we see that each persona is localized within each RM, and seperate from any other incarnation.
Are you sure about that? I mean, really sure?
Not remotely. ;)
Just it seems like OM is a subjective experience (a persona may be critical of one RM but not another. They are certainly capable of carrying on a conversation, if the RM allows). As for local versus nonlocal, OM has some aspects of both. (Interesting enough, interactions between protein strains exhibit similar traits, but I'm not trying to make a correlation here.) Frank certainly suggested the memories were contained within the cells. And Sharing requires physical contact; there is no "action at a distance" happening there.

Honestly, I'm not in any condition right now to attempt to wrap my mind around this sort of heady material. Only that OM, as described in the books, defies conventional explanation.
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Re: Duncan's Partial Siona Gene

Post by georgiedenbro »

AnEhforanEh wrote: Honestly, I'm not in any condition right now to attempt to wrap my mind around this sort of heady material. Only that OM, as described in the books, defies conventional explanation.
To be fair, conventional physics also does not permit for the sorts of premise Frank uses as a basis for Destination: Void, so there's that. It might mean the convention sucks.

Also, thanks for the tip about virtual Kindles.
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