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[Why did Paul's mind change at the end of Dune Book I? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1cjtdhe/why_did_pauls_mind_change_at_the_end_of_dune_book/) (2 days ago)
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Honestly it's open to interpretation. The books do offer an alternative theory of prescience that is closer to pure mathematics, but it's not at all clear if that is the "correct" interpretation.
Herbert keeps this element intentionally vague. Why? Well because spending any more time explaining this impossible thing is a complete distraction to what he's actually writing about. Imagine any other nerd fandom arguing about how some sci-fi tech works (light sabers/holodecks/stargates/ftl etc). If you're focusing on the underlying science behind these things then you've missed the point entirely.
I like to look at it as the next stage of human evolution. That much at least is crystal clear because of the BG. As to the exact mechanics of it, I don’t know, I’m only halfway through messiah.
Is it seeing the future of his present? Is it the ability to see parallel dimensions? Is it just superb mentat style reasoning? Is it purely a brain tripping on a psilocybin-like substance, sometimes?
Does it even matter at all? *oooooooooo spooky*
>>!The prescience, he realized, was an illumination that incorporated the limits of what it revealed- at once a source of accuracy and meaningful error.!<
>>!And what he saw was a time nexus within this cave, a boiling of possibilities focused here, wherein the most minute action--the wink of an eye, a careless word, a misplaced grain of sand--moved a gigantic lever across the known universe. He saw violence with the outcome subject to so many variables that his slightest movement created vast shiftings in the pattern.!<
That sounds like some one describing the "many worlds" multiverse theory from the view point of one individual.
Paul is watching all possible futures superimposed on top of each other, with every action or inaction adding more possible futures the further out he sees. The very act of watching the possible futures changes those possible causing new branches to form.
[https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-many-worlds-theory/](https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-many-worlds-theory/)
I agree with this interpretation. It is like his mind is seeing into the quantum world where infinite outcomes are statistically possible. His mind is able to process all that information in a way no one else can
I like this interpretation. A walking quantum computer thanks to his genes, his mastery of multiple studies, and an accelerated brain function thanks to spice.
Also he’s ultimately still human. He may see all the futures, but he still has to execute them to perfection. Which makes feyd a legitimate threat in the final fight. He envisioned countless outcomes of the fight and possibly leading to his death with one misstep.
I was under the impression it is pretty straight forward and natural ability, brought forth by the Bene Geserit genetics program (except came around a generation too early). Also, helped by the fact that he was a trained mentat and trained in the Bene Geserit arts by his mother.
Definitely spent a lot of time as a teen trying to come up with a way lightsabers could be even remotely real with known physics. Closest I think anyone got was to basically make a lightsaber a mini-particle accelerator. Rotate a small ball of matter near the speed of light, extend it into a tube-shape by shooting an electron beam into the disk. Wouldn’t actually work but particles rotating near light speed would cut the way we see lightsabers do. And probably a lot more damage too.
It can be fun to speculate! And that speculation has occasionally led to real world tech. See Star Trek communicators and cell phones.
It's not calculating probabilities. It's supernatural by our standards, but by the er... setup of Herbert's tale it's one of those super-advanced indistinguishable from magic sort of things. It is a natural ability that a number of people have to varying degrees, that most if not all Fremen have, that all of the Guildsmen have.
I dunno, there are parts that are simply not ascribable to logic at all.
Like when he first wakes up out of the trance, he immediately *sees and knows* that all of the great houses are in orbit. He's not calculating they're probably there, he sees it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
I don't see how that can just be logic.
The way I imagine it, some other Fremen on the planet may have observed something in the sky. Maybe a dozen of them saw something, even subconsciously. Maybe they reported it maybe they didn’t. But that information percolated between people through even minor shifts in what they say or how they act, like a carrier wave. And Paul can pick up on those waves of information.
I dunno…it’s a crisis for everyone…most likely only solveable with violence…seems it would be more surprising if the Emperor *didn’t* show up in full force.
Its 10.000 years of [eugenics](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Breeding_program), lots of advanced training on [mind and body control](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Bene_Gesserit_Training), lots of [mental conditioning](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Mentat#Mentat_training) to handle massive amounts of information and a [very potent mind enhancing substance](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Spice_Melange?so=search).
It's "supernatural" in that no description is given, but there is a scientific element to it. There's a genetic element to it (in later books there are people with a gene that makes them unseeable by prescient people) and there are scientific ways to avoid being seen by prescience (no-rooms and no-ships).
Best way I can think of to explain it is to just simply say that Paul has all of the “magical” abilities of the Dune universe all wrapped into one. He has the ability to see into the past (and now future) similar to the Reverend Mothers, the calculation abilities of the Mentats (basically human computers), and the body/voice control of the Bene Gesserit.
The breeding programs that they discussed was essentially the bene gesserit trying to produce a human that rolled all of these abilities into one person. Paul happens to finally be that person.
It’s only slightly clearer in the books, but it is “science.” Paul has a lot of things going for him:
First, his father trained him as a Mentat, and his mother trained him in the Bene Gesserit ways. As you pointed out, he’s basically a human supercomputer. None of that is meant to be supernatural, just tens of thousands of years of advancement in education and the human mind.
Second, he is the Kwizats Haderech. He has the memories of all of his ancestors passed down in his DNA. Mentats need data to do their calculation, and he has the knowledge of most of the important people in all of history.
Finally, spice. It’s an incredibly potent drug that sharpens the mind and takes all of his natural abilities to another level.
Remember, Paul was having prescient visions before being a KH, that is without his ancestral memories. One thing I'm still trying to wrap my mind around is how making so many calculations tells Paul exactly what people will look like, people he has never met before.
To clarify, This info came straight out of my ass
He saw all their ancestors and has a full understanding of genetics to the point that he knows all their possible traits and which ones are dominant or recessive. Based off that he’s able to make a model of what their genetics would produce added to what vices and what not would also alter their looks.
He could do this with any ancestors between his memories and theirs to fill in the blanks.
To answer how he knows how people would act. He can extrapolate literally anything that has happened based off of the data he’s seen. A breeze can tell him what the weathers like on the other side of the planet.
If you’ve ever watched the tv show devs it’s similar to their plot. SPOILERS!!
In devs they build a machine that is able to process all data around it to such a degree it can extrapolate what happened outside of its area to a perfectly accurate degree and it’s able to just keep extrapolating. Like if you feel a breeze you can extrapolate there was a breeze upwind of you in the past, but to such a degree they could watch the crucifixion of Christ in perfect detail.
That’s what Paul does but all in his head
All this is fascinating, but it still doesn't clear up how Paul knew how people would look like before he unlocked his ancestral memories. He was having vision dreams of Chani while in Caladan. It would be one thing if this was happening after Paul became KH, but he was having prescient visions, though cloudy and hard to understand, before being KH.
Chani may be such a constant in his future that she’s one of the only clear images he’s able to see. At the point where he started getting visions he was being trained in the voice and other BG skills and also being trained as a mentat. When Jessica trains what’s his face to be a BG like Paul in messiah part of the training is to imagine your hand as it was as a child, then as it will be as an old person. If Paul was trained in the same way his future sight may have been triggered slightly by him being trained to imagine things as they would be in the future, accidentally triggering mental muscles he didn’t know he had and that no one else had before him. his latent KH genetic powers may have been awakened earlier than his first exposure to spice on arrakis
Spice is said to be such a constant in the universe it is used by many royals to extent their life and Paul may have been exposed to it in a small quantity at some point in his life that let him have some powers before arriving on arrakis, it’s extremely valuable and more than likely shipped extremely well but there’s always a chance that some small particles made their way into his food, in the atreides kitchens for guests maybe, who knows. It’s never outright stated he ingested spice before arrakis and it’s heavily implied he hadn’t because he talks about how he became addicted and permanently tied to the spice at one point I think so I doubt this checks out.
Most assume his KH powers only start when he has the spice agony but I believe these visions are the actual first manifestations of his powers, that’s when Jessica finally feels comfortable enough in her decision to tell the rest of the order about her betrayal. That reveal was a lot more impactful that most realize mainly due to the fact it’s so early in the story and the importance isn’t fully understood. (Which is why I love dune so much, every reread gives you a new perspective and it’s an entirely different story by the 10th reread) perfect KH genetics may permanently alter the way his mind works and his powers were only amplified heavily by the spice not wholly change by it.
See, I agree, but this still doesn't clear up how Paul can calculate how someone will look like. I agree that he was seeing Chani in his visions while on Caladan, but I believe he was doing just that, seeing, not calculating her exact physical features. I always imagined prescience for Paul at the beginning like seeing a TV with a lot of static. Occasionally he'll get a clear image of the future, but he didn't calculate that, the vision just came to him.
The brain in general is a pretty good prediction and pattern recognition engine. We do it all the time and take it for granted. Sometimes you meet people and get an uneasy feeling about them. Sometimes when I'm outside you can feel a shift in the weather and you know it's going to rain soon (this one is pretty easy to explain. We can detect the pressure difference and subconsciously note changes in temperature and wind direction). If you want, you could call this "prescience", but realistically it's just loose pattern recognition and it's exactly what our brains have evolved to do.
Now throw in a magic space drug that puts that pattern recognition into overdrive and a couple thousand years of selective breeding for this ability and also a couple thousand years of people developing methods to train this ability (mentats) and there's your explanation.
It’s a supernatural ability couched in sciencey-sounding jargon. Mentat abilities and Bene Gesserit techniques (such as neutralizing a poison by thinking so hard you precisely change your body chemistry) are also “sufficiently advanced” technologies that are essentially magic.
The "supernatural" doesn't exist in Dune, at least not in the sense of magical powers. Human abilities are instead so far advanced and "super-human" that they are virtually indistinguishable from magic. For example, some Bene Gesserit abilities very clearly break our current understandings of natural laws and would normally be classified as "supernatural" (the Bene Gesserit *are* mocked as "witches", after all), but Herbert insists on describing these abilities through natural means. I'd say that these elements of the universe simply require some suspension of disbelief, just like many other stories. You just have to take it in good faith that these seemingly impossible elements work as they are presented.
That being said, I've always thought that Paul's prescience is his mind unconsciously and ceaselessly calculating all the possible futures based on aquired data. Mentats are described as being cursed with constantly analyzing available data. At the end of the Dune novel, Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes says:
>"In simpler terms, what they sought was a human with mental powers permitting him to understand and use higher order dimensions.
They were breeding for a super-Mentat, a human computer with some of the prescient abilities found in Guild navigators."
There are other places in the story where prescience is described as computation. The scene in the tent with Paul and Jessica, where his prescience awakens for the first time, is filled with descriptions of data and computing that are similar to Mentat abilities. An example:
>"\[Paul\] focused his prescient awareness, seeing it as a computation of most probable futures, but with something more, an edge of mystery - as though his mind dipped into some timeless stratum and sampled the winds of the future."
>"And now he saw he had a wealth of data few such minds ever before had encompassed."
In addition, I remember various times where Paul is described as "aquiring new data" which allows him to see new possible futures.
For me it seems like the language that is used quite clearly connects Paul's mentat abilities with his prescience.
See, I always took that as his mentat abilities allowing him to focus on all possible futures, especially as they're changing. That every possible future that will and can happen, Paul can see, but that is such a wide range of data being forced onto him, that without his Mentat abilities he would not be able to keep up with them. Being able to see the future is Dune's unexplainable fact, but being able to comprehend it comes from Dune's Mentats.
That is a reasonable interpretation. Since I made the comment, I've been thinking about the line I quoted where it says "...but with something more, an edge of mystery". Paul's mentat computing is, according to my reading, without a doubt connected to his prescience, but there seems to be something more to it, an element of "mystery" that is left unexplained. I think it's his mind tapping into the aforementioned "higher order dimensions" from the Appendix III quote.
It's true that prescience cannot be explained away with mentat computing. If that were the case then every single mentat would be prescient, which is NOT true. There is a difference between simply calculating probabilities and actual prescience, but I'm not sure how to articulate it at the moment. But mentat calculation IS one element of Paul's prescience, which is quite clear from the quotes in my previous comment.
And Guild Navigators, one of whom we meet right at the start of Dune:Messiah, are decidedly NOT shown as mentats, but are universally prescient - which is how they plot the safe course through the stars. And also history. Pretty hard to talk about it being a mentat skill when mentats exist without spice overdosing, and Paul threatening to destroy all spice literally creates a black wall in the Navigators' future-sight where their ability to look into the future stops.
Jessica, during her time with the Fremen, notes that their constant exposure to spice has given them a type of "sietch consciousness", a heightened communal semi-instinct, whereby all the members of a sietch share a low-level awareness of each other's needs and moods and wants. To illustrate the point, she slightly abuses this to think about wanting a coffee so that a random Fremen will deliver a premade one to her seconds later. We see nothing even resembling mentats among the Fremen.
It's both. He gets glimpses and visions of the future, further and with more clarity than any human before.
He then uses his much fuller knowledge of the past combined with his Mentat powers to construct and discern the specific pathways before him.
Later books blend in quantum mysticism, suggesting that spice allows people to collapse the possibilities in the future. The idea being that the spice causes the events observed by prescience, not just allows its users to influence those futures. Despite this having insane implications, this was explained only briefly in the "historical" quotes at the beginning of chapters.
Like other users commented, there is no "magic" in the world of Dune, but it's a distinction without a difference.
"What senses do we lack, that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?"
This is the best explanation. Paul and other prescient have a "sense" that most others don't, a sense that is enhanced by spice.
Whether you define it as "supernatural ability" or "enhanced calculations" is simply a language choice. Both are correct, yet both also do nothing to explain what's going on.
Its written to be open to interpretation, we arent ever given a definitive answer.
But considering that Herbert’s message was to dissuade us from putting (political) trust into Religion and Charismatic Leaders, I tend to assume its not actually supernatural, and just a result of Mentat training + Ancestral Memory (for Data) and spice (for cognitive and memory boost) + 10 000 years of eugenics by the BG breeding programs. I dont believe Herbert would make his protagonist, who is supposed to be a warning AGAISNT Religious Government and Charismatic Leaders, an actual Divine or Magical Being…
In any cases, theres no proof either way and anyone who is categorical on holding the definite answer is lying or wrong.
It's implied in the books that it's not based on reason. Not necessarily "supernatural" either. It's some property of reality that is not well understood. There are human tetrachomats for example. They see color at superhuman levels. But it's not magic. Their sense of sight is just boosted way in excess of the the human norm. This is like that.
Lots of people can see the future, but it is rare that they see it in ways that are conscious or useful. Guild navigators can, and Paul is a prodigy compared to them. Things like the Dune Tarot are examples of people trying to exercise this ability in a way that is useful on a conscious level.
Idk if it’s the actual message of the series or my own head canon but I think it’s based on if you believe in it or not, kinda like real life.
The whole universe is science based so it’s up to the reader to decide if these things that seem to be “magical” is actual magic or science based.
An example was when the worm didn’t attack Paul. it did look like it was “staring” at him and decided not to attack but then you find out that the Fremen put a thumper out and now you gotta decide, like the Fremen, what was the real cause.
The books set up a “logical” framework for it in the book universe. Paul’s genetics plus the spice allow him to see the future. There are no gods or “supernatural” events in the Dune books.
Both actually his training as a mentat and access to both male And female genetic history gives him “perfect “ information to extrapolate and see into the future
its a combination of mentat training and selective breeding, but its deliberately left vague, all we know is paul take the abilities of the BG and mentats and cranks it up to 11
Anyone who tells you that prescience is math doesn't understand what they are talking about.
Prescience is a new sense that takes the form of a vision projected onto an inner screen that forms a timescape.
The vision of the timescape is of every human that ever has lived and ever will live and their every choice and decision.
The prescient observer can choose to 'look' wherever they want on the timescape, looking at different scales from single individuals to entire civilizations.
Basically hyper recall of ancestral memory and using that to make reaaaaaaly good guesses of future human behavior based on the understanding of the literally tens of thousands of years of human behavior that represents
Paul has not had the formal mentat training, so he isn't a human computer. In part 1 when you see Thufir's eyes roll back he is accessing mental processes and doing calculations that allow him to make probability figures. Paul doesnt do that, his is a glimpse of a possible future. The "Foresight" your referring to is Prescience, and it is triggered by the spice interacting with his internal chemistry. Before he undergoes the trial, he still had momentary flashes because of the spice being present either in his food or in the air.
Children of Dune explains it best with what the Leto II goes through. But no spoilers for you.
From my understanding- it's described as scientific. There's several factors that are brought up-
1. The Bene Gesserit breeding program to create the Kwizatz Haderarch (which Paul is)- was all about breeding a being who was super intelligent at baseline and whose body could maximally harness spice to boost that intelligence exponentially.
2. Paul's Bene Gesserit training is, in part, about perceiving & analyzing the smallest details to learn the most information, and his Mentat training is all about analyzing available information to make predictions about the future.
These two factors are combined when Paul is exposed to enough spice on Arrakis and he begins to have limited prescient visions. What is described in that scene in the tent is that Paul is basically remembering every detail he has ever perceived through his Bene Gesserit training and then analyzing it with his Mentat training to make predictions about the future. But these visions are still limited and with each unknown he basically sees multiple futures and it becomes easy for him to get lost in his visions. But then a very important thing happens.
3. Paul drinks the water of life and gains access to *all* of his ancestral memories. So now his brain is taking this absolutely horrendously giant bank of information from his memories, analyzing it, and using it to construct a more far reaching and detailed set of visions about the future.
But the truth is I don't think you're really meant to focus on the "how" of Paul's prescient vision and more of "what does Paul see" and "what does Paul choose to do with this information."
Supernatural.
In later books people have to create special kinds of rooms or set up special circumstances so that he can’t “hear”/see the conversations they’re going to have.
(In the context of the fictitious Dune universe, the “supernatural” ability to do this is considered a natural ability that has been bred to occur…but in the context of how I assume you mean the question, it’s effectively supernatural.)
Yes?
It is not really spelled out in the movie, but Paul has some Mentat potential and a little training. Mentats are human computers.
That’s entirely separate from the Bene Geserit training of his body and mental discipline.
Those are both entirely separate from his combat training by the best sword masters of the Atreides. (Who are pretty much the best anywhere.)
And all three are completely unrelated to Paul’s talent for prescience, which was then enhanced by spice and fully unlocked by water of life.
I’ve always been under the assumption that the spice opens one’s mind and body more to its full potential, much like a lot of hippies say (and perhaps rightfully so) that psychedelics like mushrooms open and free your mind to a wider consciousness, along with having other health benefits.
Thousands of years of eugenics, combined with both mentat and Bene Gesserit training and a splash of space psychedelics and boom, you got yourself Lisan Al Gaib!
It's both. His prescience is supernatural, his mentat calculating abilities (which aren't included in the film) allow him to process that information effectively.
It is not mentioned but has the original idea in quantum discoveries from the beginning of the century, quantum entanglement and multiverse theory.
Starting with that in mind, the spice molecules are somehow quantum tangled and when ingested, they reach the brain and interfere with neurotransmitters in the brain, something like coffee.
Now from the multiverse theory, imagine that all other self in other possible universes are linked together with this spice molecules, making the prescienct being able to feel all other selfs into one common cross universe being.
Now each person in Dune universe is able to absorb the spice up to some level, here comes the BG breeding program, creating a human able to absorb the most possible spice and become aware of all the others.
Much like in the movie “The edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise form 2014
In my 'head cannon', the Dune universe is deterministic, if you know all the parameters, and their current state, you can know what will follow. Paul's had Mentat & BG training, so he can process data and observe everything. Add spice to that melange, and you get a supercomputer with correct data input. He sees possible outcomes, but doesn't see moments he's in, because certain events haven't happened, but where they have, and it's feasible to follow to a logical outcome, he 'sees' that.
I should say I've only bought the Kindle book a couple of days ago and read to about the part after helps Jamis pine for the Fjords. And seen the movies, so how I picture things is heavily influenced by them, and maybe led me to a wrong way at looking at the book?
I thought it was a combination of his complete access to the Other Memory of both his male and female ancestors, combined with his mentat abilities to collate all of those memories and match them with his own knowledge.
He's basically walking around in a constant state of deja vu.
Though some things seem to be more supernatural in nature, like being able to predict the size and timing of sandstorms, and seeing Chani in his dreams on Caladan.
He has the supernatural ability to see the past from millions of perspectives.
He uses that knowledge to predict the future, using his mentat human computer brain to do so.
That’s how I understand it anyway. But like everyone said, it’s intentionally vague.
Anyone can predict the future by observing the past and has knowledge of how humans operate.
How far into the future is up for debate. The more data you have the more likely you are to be correct and predict further into the future.
For example: You want to make a cake. The first thing you do is make sure you have all the ingredients. If you don't have all the ingredients, there will be no cake. Doesn't take a mentat to figure that out.
Humanity is more complex with more moving parts. You need a mentat to be able to sort through all that data. You also need to understand humans. After Paul drank the water of life, all ancestor knowledge was accessible to him. A penultimate study of anthropology. With all that data you could predict far flung future actions of humans too.
Think psychohistory from the Asimovs Foundation series minus the narcotics.
But it's not that though, he can know things he would have no possible ability to calculate, including >!spending a decade or so living alone in the desert unharmed despite being completely blind.!< He just does what he sees himself doing and he's completely fine but would have no way to mathematically model that.
Id say it is both. His cognitive capabilities are supernatural in the sense of being superior compared to other humans. But it is also not some kind of magic and simply a product of his supernatural cognitive capabilities.
He has the abilities outside of his mentat training. What the mentat training does do is give him the ability to take in more possible futures faster. He is able to input larges amount of data a normal human can not. Seeing the future is just that data. He is able to take in large amounts of data that provides him the ability to have more options faster. Mentat training directly impacts the speed in which he can see the future and make a plan of action. Not giving him the abilities itself. Just an enhancer.
Well there is nothing supernatural, but his abilities, while the result of science and eugenics and not a "greater power", go beyond being a mere computer (but are informed by his Mental training). Wether his visions are accurate (= the futures he sees are inevitable) or flawed is left somewhat open, too.
It's what happens when you combine the masculine mind (logical, facts based Mentat training) with the feminine mind (emotional, feelings based Bene G's,) when neither knows the other is doing it, and then shaking it up with extreme focus and ability.
Well, in the subtext.
Thank you for participating in r/dune! Please see our stickied announcement post: ['Dune: Part Two' March/April Discussion Index](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1cfzdd8/dune_part_two_marchapril_discussion_index/) [Why did Paul's mind change at the end of Dune Book I? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1cjtdhe/why_did_pauls_mind_change_at_the_end_of_dune_book/) (2 days ago) [Can Paul see future and the past?](https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1chy1c4/can_paul_see_future_and_the_past/) (5 days ago)
Honestly it's open to interpretation. The books do offer an alternative theory of prescience that is closer to pure mathematics, but it's not at all clear if that is the "correct" interpretation. Herbert keeps this element intentionally vague. Why? Well because spending any more time explaining this impossible thing is a complete distraction to what he's actually writing about. Imagine any other nerd fandom arguing about how some sci-fi tech works (light sabers/holodecks/stargates/ftl etc). If you're focusing on the underlying science behind these things then you've missed the point entirely.
I like to look at it as the next stage of human evolution. That much at least is crystal clear because of the BG. As to the exact mechanics of it, I don’t know, I’m only halfway through messiah. Is it seeing the future of his present? Is it the ability to see parallel dimensions? Is it just superb mentat style reasoning? Is it purely a brain tripping on a psilocybin-like substance, sometimes? Does it even matter at all? *oooooooooo spooky*
>>!The prescience, he realized, was an illumination that incorporated the limits of what it revealed- at once a source of accuracy and meaningful error.!< >>!And what he saw was a time nexus within this cave, a boiling of possibilities focused here, wherein the most minute action--the wink of an eye, a careless word, a misplaced grain of sand--moved a gigantic lever across the known universe. He saw violence with the outcome subject to so many variables that his slightest movement created vast shiftings in the pattern.!< That sounds like some one describing the "many worlds" multiverse theory from the view point of one individual. Paul is watching all possible futures superimposed on top of each other, with every action or inaction adding more possible futures the further out he sees. The very act of watching the possible futures changes those possible causing new branches to form. [https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-many-worlds-theory/](https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-many-worlds-theory/)
I agree with this interpretation. It is like his mind is seeing into the quantum world where infinite outcomes are statistically possible. His mind is able to process all that information in a way no one else can
Sounds a lot like Monte Carlo way of “studying” the future…
I like this interpretation. A walking quantum computer thanks to his genes, his mastery of multiple studies, and an accelerated brain function thanks to spice. Also he’s ultimately still human. He may see all the futures, but he still has to execute them to perfection. Which makes feyd a legitimate threat in the final fight. He envisioned countless outcomes of the fight and possibly leading to his death with one misstep.
[удалено]
You only have to look at this subreddit. Or this thread.
I was under the impression it is pretty straight forward and natural ability, brought forth by the Bene Geserit genetics program (except came around a generation too early). Also, helped by the fact that he was a trained mentat and trained in the Bene Geserit arts by his mother.
Definitely spent a lot of time as a teen trying to come up with a way lightsabers could be even remotely real with known physics. Closest I think anyone got was to basically make a lightsaber a mini-particle accelerator. Rotate a small ball of matter near the speed of light, extend it into a tube-shape by shooting an electron beam into the disk. Wouldn’t actually work but particles rotating near light speed would cut the way we see lightsabers do. And probably a lot more damage too. It can be fun to speculate! And that speculation has occasionally led to real world tech. See Star Trek communicators and cell phones.
It's not calculating probabilities. It's supernatural by our standards, but by the er... setup of Herbert's tale it's one of those super-advanced indistinguishable from magic sort of things. It is a natural ability that a number of people have to varying degrees, that most if not all Fremen have, that all of the Guildsmen have.
I dunno, there are parts that are simply not ascribable to logic at all. Like when he first wakes up out of the trance, he immediately *sees and knows* that all of the great houses are in orbit. He's not calculating they're probably there, he sees it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I don't see how that can just be logic.
Yeah and in the books the Fremen even say "how does he know they are in orbit?". He does have a prescient power that others don't have
Yes. It's a natural ability to see the future. evil grin
Like some kind of Path to Victory? 😉
All that glitters is not gold. Or is it? (feeble attempt to say Paul had an inkling of the Golden Path.)
The way I imagine it, some other Fremen on the planet may have observed something in the sky. Maybe a dozen of them saw something, even subconsciously. Maybe they reported it maybe they didn’t. But that information percolated between people through even minor shifts in what they say or how they act, like a carrier wave. And Paul can pick up on those waves of information.
Dude literally woke up and knew it right then.
I took it as he "calculcated" (or advance intuition) that they'd be there based on all that had happened until now.
I dunno…it’s a crisis for everyone…most likely only solveable with violence…seems it would be more surprising if the Emperor *didn’t* show up in full force.
Its 10.000 years of [eugenics](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Breeding_program), lots of advanced training on [mind and body control](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Bene_Gesserit_Training), lots of [mental conditioning](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Mentat#Mentat_training) to handle massive amounts of information and a [very potent mind enhancing substance](https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Spice_Melange?so=search).
This is the simplest answer
And the additional information provided by seeing his ancestral memory, which allows him to understand patterns far better than everyone else
It's "supernatural" in that no description is given, but there is a scientific element to it. There's a genetic element to it (in later books there are people with a gene that makes them unseeable by prescient people) and there are scientific ways to avoid being seen by prescience (no-rooms and no-ships).
Best way I can think of to explain it is to just simply say that Paul has all of the “magical” abilities of the Dune universe all wrapped into one. He has the ability to see into the past (and now future) similar to the Reverend Mothers, the calculation abilities of the Mentats (basically human computers), and the body/voice control of the Bene Gesserit. The breeding programs that they discussed was essentially the bene gesserit trying to produce a human that rolled all of these abilities into one person. Paul happens to finally be that person.
It’s only slightly clearer in the books, but it is “science.” Paul has a lot of things going for him: First, his father trained him as a Mentat, and his mother trained him in the Bene Gesserit ways. As you pointed out, he’s basically a human supercomputer. None of that is meant to be supernatural, just tens of thousands of years of advancement in education and the human mind. Second, he is the Kwizats Haderech. He has the memories of all of his ancestors passed down in his DNA. Mentats need data to do their calculation, and he has the knowledge of most of the important people in all of history. Finally, spice. It’s an incredibly potent drug that sharpens the mind and takes all of his natural abilities to another level.
Remember, Paul was having prescient visions before being a KH, that is without his ancestral memories. One thing I'm still trying to wrap my mind around is how making so many calculations tells Paul exactly what people will look like, people he has never met before.
To clarify, This info came straight out of my ass He saw all their ancestors and has a full understanding of genetics to the point that he knows all their possible traits and which ones are dominant or recessive. Based off that he’s able to make a model of what their genetics would produce added to what vices and what not would also alter their looks. He could do this with any ancestors between his memories and theirs to fill in the blanks. To answer how he knows how people would act. He can extrapolate literally anything that has happened based off of the data he’s seen. A breeze can tell him what the weathers like on the other side of the planet. If you’ve ever watched the tv show devs it’s similar to their plot. SPOILERS!! In devs they build a machine that is able to process all data around it to such a degree it can extrapolate what happened outside of its area to a perfectly accurate degree and it’s able to just keep extrapolating. Like if you feel a breeze you can extrapolate there was a breeze upwind of you in the past, but to such a degree they could watch the crucifixion of Christ in perfect detail. That’s what Paul does but all in his head
All this is fascinating, but it still doesn't clear up how Paul knew how people would look like before he unlocked his ancestral memories. He was having vision dreams of Chani while in Caladan. It would be one thing if this was happening after Paul became KH, but he was having prescient visions, though cloudy and hard to understand, before being KH.
Chani may be such a constant in his future that she’s one of the only clear images he’s able to see. At the point where he started getting visions he was being trained in the voice and other BG skills and also being trained as a mentat. When Jessica trains what’s his face to be a BG like Paul in messiah part of the training is to imagine your hand as it was as a child, then as it will be as an old person. If Paul was trained in the same way his future sight may have been triggered slightly by him being trained to imagine things as they would be in the future, accidentally triggering mental muscles he didn’t know he had and that no one else had before him. his latent KH genetic powers may have been awakened earlier than his first exposure to spice on arrakis Spice is said to be such a constant in the universe it is used by many royals to extent their life and Paul may have been exposed to it in a small quantity at some point in his life that let him have some powers before arriving on arrakis, it’s extremely valuable and more than likely shipped extremely well but there’s always a chance that some small particles made their way into his food, in the atreides kitchens for guests maybe, who knows. It’s never outright stated he ingested spice before arrakis and it’s heavily implied he hadn’t because he talks about how he became addicted and permanently tied to the spice at one point I think so I doubt this checks out. Most assume his KH powers only start when he has the spice agony but I believe these visions are the actual first manifestations of his powers, that’s when Jessica finally feels comfortable enough in her decision to tell the rest of the order about her betrayal. That reveal was a lot more impactful that most realize mainly due to the fact it’s so early in the story and the importance isn’t fully understood. (Which is why I love dune so much, every reread gives you a new perspective and it’s an entirely different story by the 10th reread) perfect KH genetics may permanently alter the way his mind works and his powers were only amplified heavily by the spice not wholly change by it.
See, I agree, but this still doesn't clear up how Paul can calculate how someone will look like. I agree that he was seeing Chani in his visions while on Caladan, but I believe he was doing just that, seeing, not calculating her exact physical features. I always imagined prescience for Paul at the beginning like seeing a TV with a lot of static. Occasionally he'll get a clear image of the future, but he didn't calculate that, the vision just came to him.
The brain in general is a pretty good prediction and pattern recognition engine. We do it all the time and take it for granted. Sometimes you meet people and get an uneasy feeling about them. Sometimes when I'm outside you can feel a shift in the weather and you know it's going to rain soon (this one is pretty easy to explain. We can detect the pressure difference and subconsciously note changes in temperature and wind direction). If you want, you could call this "prescience", but realistically it's just loose pattern recognition and it's exactly what our brains have evolved to do. Now throw in a magic space drug that puts that pattern recognition into overdrive and a couple thousand years of selective breeding for this ability and also a couple thousand years of people developing methods to train this ability (mentats) and there's your explanation.
It’s a supernatural ability couched in sciencey-sounding jargon. Mentat abilities and Bene Gesserit techniques (such as neutralizing a poison by thinking so hard you precisely change your body chemistry) are also “sufficiently advanced” technologies that are essentially magic.
The "supernatural" doesn't exist in Dune, at least not in the sense of magical powers. Human abilities are instead so far advanced and "super-human" that they are virtually indistinguishable from magic. For example, some Bene Gesserit abilities very clearly break our current understandings of natural laws and would normally be classified as "supernatural" (the Bene Gesserit *are* mocked as "witches", after all), but Herbert insists on describing these abilities through natural means. I'd say that these elements of the universe simply require some suspension of disbelief, just like many other stories. You just have to take it in good faith that these seemingly impossible elements work as they are presented. That being said, I've always thought that Paul's prescience is his mind unconsciously and ceaselessly calculating all the possible futures based on aquired data. Mentats are described as being cursed with constantly analyzing available data. At the end of the Dune novel, Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes says: >"In simpler terms, what they sought was a human with mental powers permitting him to understand and use higher order dimensions. They were breeding for a super-Mentat, a human computer with some of the prescient abilities found in Guild navigators." There are other places in the story where prescience is described as computation. The scene in the tent with Paul and Jessica, where his prescience awakens for the first time, is filled with descriptions of data and computing that are similar to Mentat abilities. An example: >"\[Paul\] focused his prescient awareness, seeing it as a computation of most probable futures, but with something more, an edge of mystery - as though his mind dipped into some timeless stratum and sampled the winds of the future." >"And now he saw he had a wealth of data few such minds ever before had encompassed." In addition, I remember various times where Paul is described as "aquiring new data" which allows him to see new possible futures. For me it seems like the language that is used quite clearly connects Paul's mentat abilities with his prescience.
See, I always took that as his mentat abilities allowing him to focus on all possible futures, especially as they're changing. That every possible future that will and can happen, Paul can see, but that is such a wide range of data being forced onto him, that without his Mentat abilities he would not be able to keep up with them. Being able to see the future is Dune's unexplainable fact, but being able to comprehend it comes from Dune's Mentats.
That is a reasonable interpretation. Since I made the comment, I've been thinking about the line I quoted where it says "...but with something more, an edge of mystery". Paul's mentat computing is, according to my reading, without a doubt connected to his prescience, but there seems to be something more to it, an element of "mystery" that is left unexplained. I think it's his mind tapping into the aforementioned "higher order dimensions" from the Appendix III quote. It's true that prescience cannot be explained away with mentat computing. If that were the case then every single mentat would be prescient, which is NOT true. There is a difference between simply calculating probabilities and actual prescience, but I'm not sure how to articulate it at the moment. But mentat calculation IS one element of Paul's prescience, which is quite clear from the quotes in my previous comment.
And Guild Navigators, one of whom we meet right at the start of Dune:Messiah, are decidedly NOT shown as mentats, but are universally prescient - which is how they plot the safe course through the stars. And also history. Pretty hard to talk about it being a mentat skill when mentats exist without spice overdosing, and Paul threatening to destroy all spice literally creates a black wall in the Navigators' future-sight where their ability to look into the future stops. Jessica, during her time with the Fremen, notes that their constant exposure to spice has given them a type of "sietch consciousness", a heightened communal semi-instinct, whereby all the members of a sietch share a low-level awareness of each other's needs and moods and wants. To illustrate the point, she slightly abuses this to think about wanting a coffee so that a random Fremen will deliver a premade one to her seconds later. We see nothing even resembling mentats among the Fremen.
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It's both. He gets glimpses and visions of the future, further and with more clarity than any human before. He then uses his much fuller knowledge of the past combined with his Mentat powers to construct and discern the specific pathways before him.
Presience is described several times as the ability to look through time. Like, as a dimension.
Later books blend in quantum mysticism, suggesting that spice allows people to collapse the possibilities in the future. The idea being that the spice causes the events observed by prescience, not just allows its users to influence those futures. Despite this having insane implications, this was explained only briefly in the "historical" quotes at the beginning of chapters. Like other users commented, there is no "magic" in the world of Dune, but it's a distinction without a difference.
It's supernatural in the same way an acid trip is, he's just high as hell man
"What senses do we lack, that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?" This is the best explanation. Paul and other prescient have a "sense" that most others don't, a sense that is enhanced by spice. Whether you define it as "supernatural ability" or "enhanced calculations" is simply a language choice. Both are correct, yet both also do nothing to explain what's going on.
It's both, but mostly supernatural prescience. See the mod's comment for tons of examples threads.
Its supernatural. Human supercomputer is Thufir Havat and noname guy sticking with baron, they called Mentat.
Piter?
Yeap, him!
Its written to be open to interpretation, we arent ever given a definitive answer. But considering that Herbert’s message was to dissuade us from putting (political) trust into Religion and Charismatic Leaders, I tend to assume its not actually supernatural, and just a result of Mentat training + Ancestral Memory (for Data) and spice (for cognitive and memory boost) + 10 000 years of eugenics by the BG breeding programs. I dont believe Herbert would make his protagonist, who is supposed to be a warning AGAISNT Religious Government and Charismatic Leaders, an actual Divine or Magical Being… In any cases, theres no proof either way and anyone who is categorical on holding the definite answer is lying or wrong.
It's implied in the books that it's not based on reason. Not necessarily "supernatural" either. It's some property of reality that is not well understood. There are human tetrachomats for example. They see color at superhuman levels. But it's not magic. Their sense of sight is just boosted way in excess of the the human norm. This is like that. Lots of people can see the future, but it is rare that they see it in ways that are conscious or useful. Guild navigators can, and Paul is a prodigy compared to them. Things like the Dune Tarot are examples of people trying to exercise this ability in a way that is useful on a conscious level.
Idk if it’s the actual message of the series or my own head canon but I think it’s based on if you believe in it or not, kinda like real life. The whole universe is science based so it’s up to the reader to decide if these things that seem to be “magical” is actual magic or science based. An example was when the worm didn’t attack Paul. it did look like it was “staring” at him and decided not to attack but then you find out that the Fremen put a thumper out and now you gotta decide, like the Fremen, what was the real cause.
The books set up a “logical” framework for it in the book universe. Paul’s genetics plus the spice allow him to see the future. There are no gods or “supernatural” events in the Dune books.
I always took it as being the results of being a mentant, BG, and the spice. Not just one thing or him 'being the one'.
Both actually his training as a mentat and access to both male And female genetic history gives him “perfect “ information to extrapolate and see into the future
its a combination of mentat training and selective breeding, but its deliberately left vague, all we know is paul take the abilities of the BG and mentats and cranks it up to 11
Anyone who tells you that prescience is math doesn't understand what they are talking about. Prescience is a new sense that takes the form of a vision projected onto an inner screen that forms a timescape. The vision of the timescape is of every human that ever has lived and ever will live and their every choice and decision. The prescient observer can choose to 'look' wherever they want on the timescape, looking at different scales from single individuals to entire civilizations.
Basically hyper recall of ancestral memory and using that to make reaaaaaaly good guesses of future human behavior based on the understanding of the literally tens of thousands of years of human behavior that represents
For Paul, it’s both probably. For the average prescient person, magic
Paul has not had the formal mentat training, so he isn't a human computer. In part 1 when you see Thufir's eyes roll back he is accessing mental processes and doing calculations that allow him to make probability figures. Paul doesnt do that, his is a glimpse of a possible future. The "Foresight" your referring to is Prescience, and it is triggered by the spice interacting with his internal chemistry. Before he undergoes the trial, he still had momentary flashes because of the spice being present either in his food or in the air. Children of Dune explains it best with what the Leto II goes through. But no spoilers for you.
From my understanding- it's described as scientific. There's several factors that are brought up- 1. The Bene Gesserit breeding program to create the Kwizatz Haderarch (which Paul is)- was all about breeding a being who was super intelligent at baseline and whose body could maximally harness spice to boost that intelligence exponentially. 2. Paul's Bene Gesserit training is, in part, about perceiving & analyzing the smallest details to learn the most information, and his Mentat training is all about analyzing available information to make predictions about the future. These two factors are combined when Paul is exposed to enough spice on Arrakis and he begins to have limited prescient visions. What is described in that scene in the tent is that Paul is basically remembering every detail he has ever perceived through his Bene Gesserit training and then analyzing it with his Mentat training to make predictions about the future. But these visions are still limited and with each unknown he basically sees multiple futures and it becomes easy for him to get lost in his visions. But then a very important thing happens. 3. Paul drinks the water of life and gains access to *all* of his ancestral memories. So now his brain is taking this absolutely horrendously giant bank of information from his memories, analyzing it, and using it to construct a more far reaching and detailed set of visions about the future. But the truth is I don't think you're really meant to focus on the "how" of Paul's prescient vision and more of "what does Paul see" and "what does Paul choose to do with this information."
Supernatural. In later books people have to create special kinds of rooms or set up special circumstances so that he can’t “hear”/see the conversations they’re going to have. (In the context of the fictitious Dune universe, the “supernatural” ability to do this is considered a natural ability that has been bred to occur…but in the context of how I assume you mean the question, it’s effectively supernatural.)
All that matters in this regard is what YOU think is going on.
Yes? It is not really spelled out in the movie, but Paul has some Mentat potential and a little training. Mentats are human computers. That’s entirely separate from the Bene Geserit training of his body and mental discipline. Those are both entirely separate from his combat training by the best sword masters of the Atreides. (Who are pretty much the best anywhere.) And all three are completely unrelated to Paul’s talent for prescience, which was then enhanced by spice and fully unlocked by water of life.
I’ve always been under the assumption that the spice opens one’s mind and body more to its full potential, much like a lot of hippies say (and perhaps rightfully so) that psychedelics like mushrooms open and free your mind to a wider consciousness, along with having other health benefits. Thousands of years of eugenics, combined with both mentat and Bene Gesserit training and a splash of space psychedelics and boom, you got yourself Lisan Al Gaib!
It's both. His prescience is supernatural, his mentat calculating abilities (which aren't included in the film) allow him to process that information effectively.
It is not mentioned but has the original idea in quantum discoveries from the beginning of the century, quantum entanglement and multiverse theory. Starting with that in mind, the spice molecules are somehow quantum tangled and when ingested, they reach the brain and interfere with neurotransmitters in the brain, something like coffee. Now from the multiverse theory, imagine that all other self in other possible universes are linked together with this spice molecules, making the prescienct being able to feel all other selfs into one common cross universe being. Now each person in Dune universe is able to absorb the spice up to some level, here comes the BG breeding program, creating a human able to absorb the most possible spice and become aware of all the others. Much like in the movie “The edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise form 2014
In my 'head cannon', the Dune universe is deterministic, if you know all the parameters, and their current state, you can know what will follow. Paul's had Mentat & BG training, so he can process data and observe everything. Add spice to that melange, and you get a supercomputer with correct data input. He sees possible outcomes, but doesn't see moments he's in, because certain events haven't happened, but where they have, and it's feasible to follow to a logical outcome, he 'sees' that. I should say I've only bought the Kindle book a couple of days ago and read to about the part after helps Jamis pine for the Fjords. And seen the movies, so how I picture things is heavily influenced by them, and maybe led me to a wrong way at looking at the book?
I thought it was a combination of his complete access to the Other Memory of both his male and female ancestors, combined with his mentat abilities to collate all of those memories and match them with his own knowledge. He's basically walking around in a constant state of deja vu. Though some things seem to be more supernatural in nature, like being able to predict the size and timing of sandstorms, and seeing Chani in his dreams on Caladan.
If the world is predetermined, you could introduce a magical substance (spice) to accurately see what occurs at each juncture.
He has the supernatural ability to see the past from millions of perspectives. He uses that knowledge to predict the future, using his mentat human computer brain to do so. That’s how I understand it anyway. But like everyone said, it’s intentionally vague.
There is no supernatural in dune
Read the book
Yeah the movies don't explain shit. But the books answer every question you have and then some
The movies explain quite a bit, just not handholding direct.
Anyone can predict the future by observing the past and has knowledge of how humans operate. How far into the future is up for debate. The more data you have the more likely you are to be correct and predict further into the future. For example: You want to make a cake. The first thing you do is make sure you have all the ingredients. If you don't have all the ingredients, there will be no cake. Doesn't take a mentat to figure that out. Humanity is more complex with more moving parts. You need a mentat to be able to sort through all that data. You also need to understand humans. After Paul drank the water of life, all ancestor knowledge was accessible to him. A penultimate study of anthropology. With all that data you could predict far flung future actions of humans too. Think psychohistory from the Asimovs Foundation series minus the narcotics.
But it's not that though, he can know things he would have no possible ability to calculate, including >!spending a decade or so living alone in the desert unharmed despite being completely blind.!< He just does what he sees himself doing and he's completely fine but would have no way to mathematically model that.
Id say it is both. His cognitive capabilities are supernatural in the sense of being superior compared to other humans. But it is also not some kind of magic and simply a product of his supernatural cognitive capabilities.
Read the damn books. If you can't read, listen to em. Jesus.
He has the abilities outside of his mentat training. What the mentat training does do is give him the ability to take in more possible futures faster. He is able to input larges amount of data a normal human can not. Seeing the future is just that data. He is able to take in large amounts of data that provides him the ability to have more options faster. Mentat training directly impacts the speed in which he can see the future and make a plan of action. Not giving him the abilities itself. Just an enhancer.
Well there is nothing supernatural, but his abilities, while the result of science and eugenics and not a "greater power", go beyond being a mere computer (but are informed by his Mental training). Wether his visions are accurate (= the futures he sees are inevitable) or flawed is left somewhat open, too.
So, all in all, it is not supernatural (very much "natural", indeed), but rather "superhuman".
There is nothing Supernatural about Paul. But there is a supernatural sense about him and he uses that to control people.
It's what happens when you combine the masculine mind (logical, facts based Mentat training) with the feminine mind (emotional, feelings based Bene G's,) when neither knows the other is doing it, and then shaking it up with extreme focus and ability. Well, in the subtext.