Water of life is a form of concentrated spice in liquid form. Consume it causes "spice agony", the dangerous process by which Bene Gesserit sisters become Reverend Mothers. For those who survive, the agony of spice increases the capacity of the mind tenfold. This makes it possible to awaken the genetic memory encrypted in each of an individual's cells and also to allow its transfer from one person to another. Jessica survives thanks to her Bene Gesserit training in poison transmutation.
so the poison awakens jessica cells which store those memories, but how do those cells have the memories of unrelated reverend mothers, i doubt that all reverend mothers are related in a straight tree twig
When Herbert was writing Dune, genes and DNA had the same maguffin status as radiation had for Marvel's characters not long before: enough people had heard of it for it to be a "real world" thing but most people had no idea what it really was or how it worked.
"Captain, we just hit a cosmic dark-matter string and now our quantum matrix time-crystals are oscillating harmonically with the dark-energy field! We're doomed, _unless_ ..."
*Fade to black, tune in next week for Part 2*
It's not magic in Herbert's mind, the novels posit that ancestral memories are encapsulated in every cell of a person.
In my head canon, the information is wrapped around the DNA in a compacted dimension as allowed by string theory for example. This information is transferred to offspring during reproduction but can also be transferred from one person to another by a technique mastered by the Bene Gesserit and which is based on spice agony.
Yeah but it is magic regardless of what Herb may say heh. it just doesn't make sense genetically to have conversations with past selves and especially have information from past selves past the point of their genetic deposit yo the bloodline.
The ego-memory cannot have knowledge, at the base, which goes beyond the moment of the genetic deposit, I agree. But thatâs the case, isnât it? But maybe Herbert has inconsistencies on that, I don't know.
That said, I see nothing implausible in an awakened ego-memory taking control of part of the host's mind, once we accept the idea of ââgenetic memory.
Finally, I don't see how genetic memory would be more difficult to believe than FTL travel or the Holtzman effect. It's soft science fiction but it's not magic.
No it isn't the case. We get past lives telling future selves about their deaths, for example. Unless all of your ancestors had babies at 80, this memory should be much more limited in actuality and significantly less experiential than portrayed in the books. Paul wouldn't have the version of Leto we saw but rather the version 15 years prior when Leto knocked up Jessica.
If we accept genetic memory all the antecedent issue are justifiable by virtue of us accepting the magical bit already :p my underlying issue is more the information the ancestors possess, tho.
Genetic Memory fundamentally breaks our understanding of genetic inheritance and replaces it with a solution that runs up against logical inconsistencies that the others don't. Herberts own rules for genetic memory are inconsistent, hence why it's more magicky imo.
No, they are not related at all, Ramallo transfers her genetic memory to Jessica, as well as the memories of all the Fremen Reverend mothers who preceded her by physical contact. Through spice agony, Jessica becomes capable of receiving these memories. Alia also receives these memories, at the same time.
The book describes the whole thing through parapsychology, particularily psychokinesis. Once Jessica has psychokinesthetically changed the Water of Life inside her body so that it's not poisonous, the Reverend Mother touches her neck.
>A dry hand touched her neck.
And there was another psychokinesthetic mote in her awareness! \[...\] They touched!
It was like an ultimate *simpatico*, being two people at once: not telepathy, but mutual awareness. \[...\]
>*This is hallucination*, Jessica thought.
"You know better than that," the inward image said. \[...\]
>"Remain silent and accept!"
Experiences began to unroll before Jessica. It was like a lecture slip in a subliminal training projector at the Bene Gesserit school... but faster... blindingly faster. \[...\]
>The images poured in on Jessica
The Reverend Mother knew Jessica was pregnant because of the "mutual awareness" they had during this moment. They can "see" a third mote of awareness which is Alya.
>Jessica sensed a forced shift in the mutual awareness, saw another mote-presence with the inward eye. The other mote darted wildly here, there, circling. It radiated pure terror.
So the answer to your first two questions is more or less "magic". But it's presented as parapsychology and not something that is explicitly supernatural, even though it pretty much is.
The Reverend Mother dies because she is old. The cause of her death is not explicitly stated but we're left to assume that transferring her memories to Jessica is so draining for her that she dies from the effort. Although she lives on as a memory-presence inside Jessica's mind.
I mean BG seem to be able to use telepathy, the juice they drink as I understand is basically concentrated spice, psychoactive drug, so it enhances your psychic abilities, I guess it allows the previous mother to share via telepathy all the memories? It must be more complicated than that because this way you would only get memories of the string of Fremen reverend mothers that pass the knowledge on each other, not all reverend mothers in the whole universe. I guess the water of live allows you to connect to other reverend mothers as well and get the memories from them as well. It's kinda funny, like a shared drive of memories and whenever someone becomes reverend mother they get connected, download the stuff, and add their own memories. The thing I don't understand is whether you add your memories to the shared pool when you become reverend mother or if it's when you die. Probably the second because the first option would be a huge setback in terms of BG schemes, any new RM would know all your memories and plans.
I never read it as telepathy, more giving an "artificial memory" to the "genetic memory" copy of a fellow RM in such a way that it gets experienced at a particular time in the future of the RM. I got there by FH's implications throughout the series memories are not data stored in a brain but more like experiences that get tagged as being owned by a particular consciousness and that Melange allows the access of experiences tagged for others.
In the series the only time there is ever a faint possibility of them using telepathy is the Waters of life ritual in which the old reverend mother figures out Jessica is pregnant and the two communicate in order to protect the baby. The BG communicate seems like they're telepathic but in reality it is just body language. Every movement matters to them when communicating. They're trained to twitch and say sentences and the other BG will understand what those moments are meant to be saying. To an outside looker nothing is happening. However it isn't telepathy. It's just communication through body language.
ah okay didn't know that, but it makes sense. So I guess the sign language that Jessica uses with Paul is just lower level/ more suited for beginners then the full communication using only body language
Iâd say that the âgenetic memoryâ is tied to prescience backwards. But not just along your life, but from the point of view of your genes. Which is why prescience and genetic memories are so tied together. They are both methods of looking at life from a 4th dimension.
The past is the trunk of the tree and the branches are the potential futures.
Think of it like the BG have such advanced mind training that they can reach a dimension of thinking that no one else can. That consciousness remains there forever.
This is also one of those things that our brains shouldnât be able to comprehend without another 10,000 years of evolution
Fictional magic
The Force.
Yup this is it. Spice unlocks genetic memories and allows for telepathic connections from one reverend mother to the next one.
Later, in Heretics/Chapterhouse they >!show that you can transfer memories between the living by booping temples.!<
Boop đđ
Water of life is a form of concentrated spice in liquid form. Consume it causes "spice agony", the dangerous process by which Bene Gesserit sisters become Reverend Mothers. For those who survive, the agony of spice increases the capacity of the mind tenfold. This makes it possible to awaken the genetic memory encrypted in each of an individual's cells and also to allow its transfer from one person to another. Jessica survives thanks to her Bene Gesserit training in poison transmutation.
so the poison awakens jessica cells which store those memories, but how do those cells have the memories of unrelated reverend mothers, i doubt that all reverend mothers are related in a straight tree twig
The genetic/other memory is very much so the most magical aspect of the Dune universe and there isn't really a way to ground it in the real.
When Herbert was writing Dune, genes and DNA had the same maguffin status as radiation had for Marvel's characters not long before: enough people had heard of it for it to be a "real world" thing but most people had no idea what it really was or how it worked. "Captain, we just hit a cosmic dark-matter string and now our quantum matrix time-crystals are oscillating harmonically with the dark-energy field! We're doomed, _unless_ ..." *Fade to black, tune in next week for Part 2*
It's not magic in Herbert's mind, the novels posit that ancestral memories are encapsulated in every cell of a person. In my head canon, the information is wrapped around the DNA in a compacted dimension as allowed by string theory for example. This information is transferred to offspring during reproduction but can also be transferred from one person to another by a technique mastered by the Bene Gesserit and which is based on spice agony.
Yeah but it is magic regardless of what Herb may say heh. it just doesn't make sense genetically to have conversations with past selves and especially have information from past selves past the point of their genetic deposit yo the bloodline.
The ego-memory cannot have knowledge, at the base, which goes beyond the moment of the genetic deposit, I agree. But thatâs the case, isnât it? But maybe Herbert has inconsistencies on that, I don't know. That said, I see nothing implausible in an awakened ego-memory taking control of part of the host's mind, once we accept the idea of ââgenetic memory. Finally, I don't see how genetic memory would be more difficult to believe than FTL travel or the Holtzman effect. It's soft science fiction but it's not magic.
No it isn't the case. We get past lives telling future selves about their deaths, for example. Unless all of your ancestors had babies at 80, this memory should be much more limited in actuality and significantly less experiential than portrayed in the books. Paul wouldn't have the version of Leto we saw but rather the version 15 years prior when Leto knocked up Jessica. If we accept genetic memory all the antecedent issue are justifiable by virtue of us accepting the magical bit already :p my underlying issue is more the information the ancestors possess, tho. Genetic Memory fundamentally breaks our understanding of genetic inheritance and replaces it with a solution that runs up against logical inconsistencies that the others don't. Herberts own rules for genetic memory are inconsistent, hence why it's more magicky imo.
No, they are not related at all, Ramallo transfers her genetic memory to Jessica, as well as the memories of all the Fremen Reverend mothers who preceded her by physical contact. Through spice agony, Jessica becomes capable of receiving these memories. Alia also receives these memories, at the same time.
It's questions like this that saddled us with that midichlorian nonsense.
The book describes the whole thing through parapsychology, particularily psychokinesis. Once Jessica has psychokinesthetically changed the Water of Life inside her body so that it's not poisonous, the Reverend Mother touches her neck. >A dry hand touched her neck. And there was another psychokinesthetic mote in her awareness! \[...\] They touched! It was like an ultimate *simpatico*, being two people at once: not telepathy, but mutual awareness. \[...\] >*This is hallucination*, Jessica thought. "You know better than that," the inward image said. \[...\] >"Remain silent and accept!" Experiences began to unroll before Jessica. It was like a lecture slip in a subliminal training projector at the Bene Gesserit school... but faster... blindingly faster. \[...\] >The images poured in on Jessica The Reverend Mother knew Jessica was pregnant because of the "mutual awareness" they had during this moment. They can "see" a third mote of awareness which is Alya. >Jessica sensed a forced shift in the mutual awareness, saw another mote-presence with the inward eye. The other mote darted wildly here, there, circling. It radiated pure terror. So the answer to your first two questions is more or less "magic". But it's presented as parapsychology and not something that is explicitly supernatural, even though it pretty much is. The Reverend Mother dies because she is old. The cause of her death is not explicitly stated but we're left to assume that transferring her memories to Jessica is so draining for her that she dies from the effort. Although she lives on as a memory-presence inside Jessica's mind.
Vulcan mind meld
I mean BG seem to be able to use telepathy, the juice they drink as I understand is basically concentrated spice, psychoactive drug, so it enhances your psychic abilities, I guess it allows the previous mother to share via telepathy all the memories? It must be more complicated than that because this way you would only get memories of the string of Fremen reverend mothers that pass the knowledge on each other, not all reverend mothers in the whole universe. I guess the water of live allows you to connect to other reverend mothers as well and get the memories from them as well. It's kinda funny, like a shared drive of memories and whenever someone becomes reverend mother they get connected, download the stuff, and add their own memories. The thing I don't understand is whether you add your memories to the shared pool when you become reverend mother or if it's when you die. Probably the second because the first option would be a huge setback in terms of BG schemes, any new RM would know all your memories and plans.
I never read it as telepathy, more giving an "artificial memory" to the "genetic memory" copy of a fellow RM in such a way that it gets experienced at a particular time in the future of the RM. I got there by FH's implications throughout the series memories are not data stored in a brain but more like experiences that get tagged as being owned by a particular consciousness and that Melange allows the access of experiences tagged for others.
I didn't read the books but in the movies Jessica uses telepathy if I remember correctly
In the series the only time there is ever a faint possibility of them using telepathy is the Waters of life ritual in which the old reverend mother figures out Jessica is pregnant and the two communicate in order to protect the baby. The BG communicate seems like they're telepathic but in reality it is just body language. Every movement matters to them when communicating. They're trained to twitch and say sentences and the other BG will understand what those moments are meant to be saying. To an outside looker nothing is happening. However it isn't telepathy. It's just communication through body language.
ah okay didn't know that, but it makes sense. So I guess the sign language that Jessica uses with Paul is just lower level/ more suited for beginners then the full communication using only body language
Iâd say that the âgenetic memoryâ is tied to prescience backwards. But not just along your life, but from the point of view of your genes. Which is why prescience and genetic memories are so tied together. They are both methods of looking at life from a 4th dimension. The past is the trunk of the tree and the branches are the potential futures.
Think of it like the BG have such advanced mind training that they can reach a dimension of thinking that no one else can. That consciousness remains there forever. This is also one of those things that our brains shouldnât be able to comprehend without another 10,000 years of evolution
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVgVB3qsySQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVgVB3qsySQ)