Vulcans vs Mentats

[Dahak]

"The forms must be obeyed" as the Great Convention begins...
Any weapon is forbidden that does bad things to the shape of a human being.

And they do use computers. Just not thinking machines, which can perform tasks like a human could. Dumb, non-AI, non-thinking machines are allowed.

And I see no point why a computer should be more powerful than a Mentat brain, which is trained and perfected for nearly ten thousand years to work like a computer. Never underestimate the computational power of the human brain. Even today, it is far more powerful than computers when it comes down to image processing and recognition.

[Ghost Rider]

IR and eye contact...but to say we even compete with most computers today in nigh insane. Also the way he make Mentants are well beyond human unless they are nothing more than giant calcultors(then again people in that universe seem to have pre-natural abilities of computation given that Chani could name and talk about every single enemy Paul has faced or potential enemies...and she is hardly a Mentat)

I just chalk it up to Herbert wanted a less tech society so his form of warfare could be employed with more ease(knife fighting?!) and used things like the Butlerian Jihad as a form to tell why people became so dogmatically against computers.

[Dahak]

Theoretically, you can do everything a modern computer does on a paper with a pen, using a Turing machine. The onlz difference is that modern computer (or any computer ever built) does it a lot faster.

[Ghost Rider]

Yes, but the fact that Mentats are humans and even if they are living computers, makes them rather falliable...I mean basically they somehow have some form of eidietic memory.

The problem is that basically they make everyone is Dune ultra memroy retentive with no real say why, aside from these are special people(and no I'm not meaning only Mentats, as with my Chani example)

[Dahak]

But Dune spent the past 10,000 years to develop the mind. Clearly they have reached a totally different level of understanding it and using that than we have today.

[Ghost Rider]

But that contradicts literally everything history has shown us, and given that not all 10,000 years were to the expanison of the human mind is even more of a leap of logic.

[Dahak]

But that contradicts literally everything history has shown us, and given that not all 10,000 years were to the expanison of the human mind is even more of a leap of logic.

How so?

And you have the three huge schools of Mind, the BEne GEsserit, MEntats and Navigators. All showing a tremendous control of mind...

[Ghost Rider]

The schools of thought matter little but you're saying because they had 10,000 years they expanded the mind...which is untrue because it wasn't 10,000 to being with. The Butl;erian Jihad was apparently less then that(I don't have the Dune Book in front of me)

That and they are basically saying when man begins to explore the mind then we will have these powers...but as to that it's a leap of logic centered around the thought we would have to disavow computers and think for ourselves...which is a fallacy because we do just that and computers are there to enhance, not to take place of a person.

[Scorpius]

That and they are basically saying when man begins to explore the mind then we will have these powers....

No, it's when man finds the spice...The spice essence is what fuels the Bene Gesserit, the Guild, and to a degree the Mentats. It's a variable in this discussion as ALL of the spices' capabilities are not explained...

[Dahak]

The schools of thought matter little but you're saying because they had 10,000 years they expanded the mind...which is untrue because it wasn't 10,000 to being with. The Butl;erian Jihad was apparently less then that(I don't have the Dune Book in front of me)

That and they are basically saying when man begins to explore the mind then we will have these powers...but as to that it's a leap of logic centered around the thought we would have to disavow computers and think for ourselves...which is a fallacy because we do just that and computers are there to enhance, not to take place of a person.

But they went through a period where computers, the Thinking Machines, enslaved humans. After that, they needed to replace computers with something else: human minds. And if you look at those people using memory enhancing techniques and what astonishing things they do with that (I certainly can't meorize a huge, huge number).
Fact is that Mentats *are* capable of incredible computation.

[Lord Pounder]

the Calander is 10,000 years from the end of the Bulterian Jihad. With the life and mental expansion properties of the spice there'd be plenty of time to learn techinques for improving the processing powers of the human mind. If the Prequals can be taken into account at 35 Shadam IV was still in school. Also there is the unknown of Sapho Juice which is deemed to help "improve the speed of neurons"

[Mr. Mister]

Wong, you haven't missed anything by not reading the sequels. Dune is one of those incidents where the original is very enjoyable but the sequels are unbearable. The only book I can think of that I hated more than Children of Dune was Dune Messiah.

Anyway... The Bene Gesserit are eugenecists. We know that they have selective breeding programs in place. It wouldn't surprise me if genetic engineering had been going on too.

[Sokar]

Ok, here goes. On the debate between Mentats and Vulcans for me it comes down to Mentats, their training and skills are prized possessions for a noble house on the Duneverse. Vulcan logic is common , there is a whole planet full of them , while only a few thousand Mentats are produced each year.

Second, warfare in the Duneverse is HIGHLY ritualized and certain forms and protocols must be obeyed or you answer to the Landsraad Court and if the offence is severe enough, the Emperors Sardaukar, to which no individual House could stand up to. Unrestricted warfare ended after the carnage of the Butlerian Jihad, when the machines regularly used bioweapons, nuclear arms and worse to put down the rebellion. Holtzmann shields have made projectile weapons largely inneffective, the harder or faster you hit a shield, the harder it reflects the impact(Yes this is a huge liability due to the whole Conservation of Momentum problem, but that never seems to be a problem for a shield user), but slow moving objects such as knives and swords have become the primary weapons of war once again. Las weapons aren't used due to there explosive interaction(kilo-ton nuke range) effect with shields(Yes this was a complaint I had with the KJA prequels were the predominance of las armed troops). However on Arrakkis , shields dont work due to the planets massive static electrical field(A poor reason, what does everyone on the planet shock themselves every time they touch a door knob......) Also , individual houses do not have their own interstellar transport capability, which is the sole province of the Spacing Guild. Guild prices for troop transport are exorbitant, making waging war for years or decades with vast armies nigh impossible for anyone but the Emperor or an punitive expedition that is paid for out of the Landsraad Council funds.
To a modern citizen of Earth where we have lived with the spectre of Total Wars for over a century all of these limitations seem a folly and ineficient, but is it really ? All of the regulations and protocols are designed just to prevent that type of horror ands destruction. Wars are fought swiftly and efficiently with only soilders taking the brunt of the casualties. For me I'd rather see that , than the multi-year rolling front that annihilates anything or anyone that gets in its way.