Dune The Golden Path, was it really necessary?

[Typhonis]

Actually the quote from the OC Bible is "Thou shalt not build a machine in the image of a human mind. "

You can have calculators and calculation engines it's just mentats were faster. I mean a Babbage engine could do the work but it horrible complex.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Actually the quote from the OC Bible is "Thou shalt not build a machine in the image of a human mind. "

You can have calculators and calculation engines it's just mentats were faster.

No, you can't, because the Butlerian Jihad canonically took an extremely broad interpretation of that quote to include absolutely any machine capable of any form of 'thinking' and then enforced that interpretation with gratuitous amounts of mass murder.

Mentats are only superior to computers by act of plot, because mentat abilities start with literally impossible levels of math and memory abilities and push into Thrawn style act-of-plot thinking abilities, and at the high end, outright precognition.

 

[Navarro]

40K is more reasonable than Dune when it comes to computers and in that universe humanity was almost wiped out by AI.

 

[Husky_Khan]

This element of Dune always felt like an incredibly self-righteous "take that!" to the emerging importance of computer science in the era where the story was written.

Honestly sounds more like your self projection then an actual critique.

Mentats are only superior to computers by act of plot, because mentat abilities start with literally impossible levels of math and memory abilities and push into Thrawn style act-of-plot thinking abilities, and at the high end, outright precognition.

And criticizing a story for "acts of plot" seems incredibly bizarre. Like if your going to read a fictional story without "acts of plot" then read an Apple repair manual.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

And criticizing a story for "acts of plot" seems incredibly bizarre. Like if your going to read a fictional story without "acts of plot" then read an Apple repair manual.

The philosophical aspects of Dune strongly imply a serious, real life belief that humanity either latently possesses or would "evolve" such superior capabilities if it weren't for computer technology eliminating the "need" for plot-magic brains, which I find really annoying.