Just Finished Reading: Dune and Philosophy – The Weirding Way of the Mentat edited by Jeffery Nicholas

Well, I just had to really……

I have been enjoying these Popular Culture and Philosophy books. They’re a great way to get into some of the philosophical ideas and concepts as well as delve a bit deeper into some of your favourite bits of pop culture. Of course few come closer than Dune which produced 6 original novels by Frank Herbert as well as many more expansions by his son and others. Then there was the ‘interesting’ movie and two made-for-TV mini-series. All in all that’s quite a bit of material to mine into for philosophical subject matter. Those who know of the Dune universe will not be in the least bit surprised that there is a great deal of fine philosophical material to mine! Indeed several authors in this outstanding collection call Herbert a philosopher in his own right rather than a SF author who just peppered his work with bits of philosophy. I would probably agree with them.

I read the first Dune trilogy back in my teens. Again for those who have experienced the books you can imagine the effect they had on an adolescent mind. Tales of Galaxy spanning empires, super beings, genetic manipulation on a species wide scale, cloning and much else besides made my head spin. Something of that effect, still with me after all those years, was present in this book. Some of the articles were very well written indeed, the majority were interesting at worst and often fascinating. A mere two were, in my opinion, largely unworthy to have been included – which out of sixteen articles actually wasn’t that bad. Discussions moved from the differences in politics between the worlds of Dune, the problems and dilemmas associated with planning to improve the species, the possibility of being enslaved by technology of our own creation, issues created by the idea of seeing the future – does it destroy free will or give us an amazing power to shape our own destinies and is it even possible to shape our own destiny never mind that of an entire species.

One of my favourite sections was a series of discussions on ideas of personal identity using one of my favourite Dune characters – the Ghola Duncan Idaho – as an example. If a clone of someone long dead can have his memories activated so that he is mentally the ‘same’ as his deceased counterpart is he the same person? What if two such clones exist at the same time? If you had multiple copies of yourself from previous lives and had access to their memories are you still you or are you them or someone completely new? It’s fascinating stuff. The last section – discussions about Paul Muad’Dib from a Nietzschean perspective – rocked my world. They were excellent. Inevitably I watched the movie, deeply flawed though it is, soon after reading this and am seriously toying with the idea of reading the Herbert novels again. Maybe I will – when I have an extra few weeks to rub together.

If you are a Dune fan, and I know some of my regulars are, you will definitely enjoy this book. It does help to have at least some knowledge of the series and the movie to get the full benefit from this book but on the other hand it might raise enough interest in those who haven’t read these landmark works to dive right in. Highly recommended.