C O L L E C T I O N S | |
DUNE CHRONICLES |
Harq al-Ada |
CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm." CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?" RESPONSE: "It give us the air we breathe." CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it." "Riddles of Arrakis" by Harq al-Ada Children of Dune
Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe
that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. Indeed,
knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered under
conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of Time
and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity,
it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship
to each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is
impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we
explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected
scientists? How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib?
This was Muad'Dib's achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each
individual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell
of our common genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from
that common origin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious
leap of decision. Muad'Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory
into ongoing evaluation. Thus did he break through Time's veils, making a
single thing of the future and the past. That was Muad'Dib's creation embodied
in his son and his daughter.
Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening
for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is
an extremely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment
and innovation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about
whether environment is a selective agents after the variation occurs, or
whether environment plays a pre-selective role in determining the variations
which it screens. Dune did not really answer those questions: it merely
raised new questions which Leto and the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over
the next five hundred generations.
Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work
toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble
with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding
brilliance.
There exist obvious higher-order influences in any planetary system. This is
often demonstrated by introducing terraform life onto newly discovered
planets. In all such cases, the life in similar zones develops striking
similarities of adaptive form. This form signifies much more than shape; it
connects a survival organization and a relationship of such organizations.
The human quest for this interdependent order and our niche within it
represents a profound necessity. The quest can, however, be perverted into a
conservative grip on sameness. This has always proved deadly for the entire
system.
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