redbugpest wrote:"Do not fear the lxians [...] They can make the machines, but they no longer can make arafel. I know. I was there."
Leto II, explicitly saying that humanity is no longer threatened by extinction from machines. Hence, completely incompatible with the return of Omnius.
Wrong – the Ixian’s do not make him again – he survived the Jihad. Leto II is saying that it is safe for the Ixians to make more hi tech equipment. He knows that technology such as the No Ships and the Ixian drives will be needed to fight the machines when Humanity meets them again in the future.
Are you kidding me! You are saying that all through God Emperor, Leto II had a secret plan for when humanity met the machines again - and he never once mentioned that even in his thoughts! Wow! Never mind the original quote or that you think I think the Ixians remade Omnius (!?!?!?!?!?) or anything, just wow.
redbugpest wrote:"The Butlerian Jihad tried to rid our universe of machines which simulate the mind of man."
Not machines which killed men, which would be the more relevant point if that was what they did.
It can be taken either way. It’s too vague a statement to be conclusive.
This is Leto thinking back. Are you saying that in reality, he is remembering the whole Skynet thing, but he is just musing out loud how the goal was not survival, but to exterminate the thinking machines?
redbugpest wrote:One moment he felt himself setting forth on the Butlerian Jihad, eager to destroy any machine which simulated human awareness. That had to be the past -- over and done with. Yet his senses hurtled through the experience, absorbing the most minute details. He heard a minister-companion speaking from a pulpit: "We must negate the machines-that-think. Humans must set their own guidelines. This is not something machines can do. Reasoning depends upon programming, not on hardware, and we are the ultimate program!" He heard the voice clearly, knew his surroundings -- a vast wooden hall with dark windows. Light came from sputtering flames. And his minister-companion said: "Our Jihad is a 'dump program.' We dump the things which destroy us as humans!"
Leto II remebering genetically.
Again this could be argued either way. Humans must set their own guidelines could imply that machines had started imposing guidelines among humans.
Again, are you for real?
According to you, the machines did not "set guidelines". They enslaved people! They killed them! "I think it is wrong for the murderous machines to shoot at me whenever I walk out my door, maybe if we had a commitee meeting and cupcakes and..."
This is a situation in which someone is inciting the masses, a minister of sorts. He is espousing philosophy, he is talking about taken the reins ad setting guidelines. Not escaping bloody internment camps.
Can you imagine a jew i Krakow, nazis streaming through the initial gates before the great purge, holding a stolen mauser rifle and talking to his huttled band: "The inherent problem with the national socialist ideology is that..."?
No. If one is fighting for ones life, that is all the reason you need. You do not argue for the need to stop a huge bloody thing from ripping your throat out!
Do you seriously believe that when Frank wrote that, he was thinking about humanity fighting for its survival against an evil AI? I am humbly suggesting that he was imagining a scenario where humanity decided to get rid of (dump?) the machines and steer the course of humanity for itself (guidelines).
redbugpest wrote:"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
That could be a lead in to the Titans, who controlled Omnius until Omnius was freed through a programming error. Again this is open to the interpretation of the person reading it.
No. You are raping it, forcing it open so it will fit with your preconceived notion. The original text (6 books!) never once hints that there was an evil AI in humanitys past. Not once!
If Frank had intended there to be such an AI, he would have written "But that only permitted a machine to enslave them." He didn't.
redbugpest wrote:Then came the Butlerian Jihad -- two generations of chaos. The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised: "Man may not be replaced."
God of machine-logic was overthrown could be interpreted as violence between machine and humanity.
No. It can be interpreted as an idea, like this:
[quote="Frank Herbert, in GEoD]"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed."[/quote]
It is replaced by a concept, for f...
Overthrown among the masses means a change among people, like you overthrow an idea or belief. It does not mean Terminators trampling on skulls.
Jeez. You are not even reading these things, are you? Do you get at what I am saying here? Do you even understand what I am saying Frank meant here? Do you see how it fits with
every single sentence of the books?
Why the bloody hell would Frank, who was not retarded, write about an evil AI killing off humanity as "machine-logic was overthrown". Was he including deliberately obtruse prose on a drunken bet?
redbugpest wrote:JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) -- the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."
Hmmmm – Thinking machines and conscious robots – crusade – sounds like an argument for the legends series!
Crusade is religious. Would you kindly read the damn things?
It has a commandment after it.
Can you see how this is a religion-thing? That the proscription is motivated by religious feelings and philosophy, according to Frank writings?
It was "against" them. Not in response to their attempt to wipe us out.
No
redbugpest wrote:Its possession was the shibboleth of this age, but it carried also the taint of old immorality. Once, they'd been guided by an artificial intelligence, computer brains. The Butlerian Jihad had ended that, but it hadn't ended the aura of aristocratic vice which enclosed such things.
About a fencing machine - which is the closest thing to a robot in the Dune universe.
Guided by an artificial intelligence – Omnius!
Let's try this one again:
This is Leto II
He is pretty darn smart and knows a lot of stuff, ok?
Two sentences.
Hold on now, we are going to start at the last one, ok?
Got it?
It goes "Naturally, the machines were destroyed."
What could that mean? How does that make sense? Is he talking about icecream?
I posit, and I am all ears as to alternatives here, that such a sentence only makes sense if whatever word, sentence or paragraph preceeding it is the
reason the machines were destroyed.
Now, lets look at what comes before it, shall we? What will it be?
A robot mixed someone a bad drink? Keanu Reeves was elected actor of the years too many times in a row because we had computer judges? An evil AI tried to murder everyone?
Exciting, hu?
"Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments."
So there you have it.
Wanna take a look at that sentence?
Who is acting, who is the
subject of the sentence?
Thats right. "Humans" - as in humanity, or most of us, or consensus. Humans.
What did we do?
We set "those machines..." - Dang. We put the machines in a position. It wasn't Donald Duck who did it, and it wasn't Omnius and it wasn't evil cyborgs. It was humans. Wow. Who would have thunk that, reading Terminator novels.
Hang on, don't confuse the two universes.
What was the problem, we did something with the computers. We put them to "usurp" something. Difficult word, that.
Let's look it up, hu?
"Seize and take control without authority and possibly with force; take as one's right or possession"
Wow. That is kind of a paradox, isn't it?
We set the machines as to take something, maybe it wasn't really meant to happen, or thought out.
And maybe, and this is gonna blow you mind, so stay with it.
We are getting a glimpse into Leto II's psyche. Maybe he is using that word because he disliked how the machines had that power.
How about that, hu? Characterization with saying stuff like "Leto II was really mad at the machines". He must be a real author or something.
OK, too much at a time. Back to the sentence.
Let's look at it again.
"Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments."
OK, they took "our sense of beauty", which is also "our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgements."
Wow.
Not our lives or anything?
No "our right to live and the newborn out of the hands of the mothers"?
Just some philosophical stuff about making decisions ourselves?
That's boring! Can't make an action novel about that.
I know it is tough, but maybe Dune just isn't for you. There's like, thoughts and stuff in it.
It takes time to digest.
'Ead 'Urts.
The Jihad was because humanity put the machines in a position which made us less human. Took our choices away.
Now, just for kicks, lets look at the sentence behind the all.
You're doing great, hang in there.
Maybe it will contradict what I am saying and mention Omnius, wouldn't that be exciting?
Ready?
Excited?
"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines,"
Wow!
No AIs
No lazerz-gunz or anything.
Machine-attitude!
Now an attitude is a way of thinking, right?
You don't worry about attitudes when death wrapped in steel is punching your brothers face in, do you?
This is all so exciting, isn't it?
We are learning stuff. By reading, no less.
The Jihad was against a certain "attitude", maybe the same attitude which allowed machines to make our choices for us?
Machines took away philosophical concepts which made us human. They weren't killing us?
I know. It is kinda hard stuff, and Herbert did read Heidegger and nobody fucking gets Heidegger. This is why I wanted to start you up on the obvious stuff first. Like how you cannot believe a machine is always compliant and trustworthy, while also believing a machine once betrayed and nigh-extermionated mankind. Maybe we should start there, before we wax philosophical?