My skin is not my own...

[SandChigger]

On the topic of possession, haven't we discussed the possibility of Sheeana donning the skin, in which case her control over the new worms/trout may diminish the risk?

That both sounds familiar and makes sense.

[Omphalos]

No, it most certainly would not. First, none of Leto's memories would be in there. Second, a recopied Leto would be no more Leto than the sheep Dolly would be of its "mother." The potential is there, but you could not guarantee (or probably even realize) a photocopy of Leto by cloning his DNA. DNA is potential, not blueprints. Any geneticist will tell you that. We could clone Thing a million times and have a million different individuals.

Wait, are you talking Real World or Duniverse here? Real World, right?

I'm confoosed now.

A clone/ghola of Leto II (by Duniverse "rules") should have the potential of remembering his memories up until the time the DNA sample was taken (or death if it's a ghola grown from cells harvested after death ... from the carcass by the river?), but wouldn't actually remember them until some trauma designed to awaken them ... just like any other ghola/clone.

Im talking about in universe, but I'm also not talking about a BT product. The subject here is the potential in the worms on Rakis, right? The potential of the "pearls." Or am I confused? Sorry if I got the topic wrong guys.

Anyway, there is still a difference. The BT have a ghola/clone process for making new copies. I assume that even in Frank's world, which is essentially our universe, ordinary cloning without a ghola process would result in the same thing we create; a copy from the genetic material that would express genes randomly. IOW, just because you are in the fictional Dune world doesn't mean that cloning works by different rules. You have to scientifically control those variables.

[SandChigger]

I was using clone here in the Teg-sense: ghola from cells from a living individual.

[A Thing of Eternity]

That is certainly true, though as was pointed out earlier the question isn't actually how much of Leto is in his "pearls" the question is whether those pearls hold any of his DNA. If they do hold his DNA, then the DNA (in the Dune universe, not the real one obviously) would hold a full and complete copy of Leto's mind., regardless of how functional/complete the pearl is.

No, it most certainly would not. First, none of Leto's memories would be in there. Second, a recopied Leto would be no more Leto than the sheep Dolly would be of its "mother." The potential is there, but you could not guarantee (or probably even realize) a photocopy of Leto by cloning his DNA. DNA is potential, not blueprints. Any geneticist will tell you that. We could clone Thing a million times and have a million different individuals.

Whoa, of course I agree with all that, I've been one of the people arguing that OM is technical BS the whole time - I'm talking strictly in-universe here, where as far as I know DNA DOES convey OM. OM is genetic memory, that is how FH defines it repeatedly (unless my memory is seriously missfiring).

I realize you address some of this in a later post, I'm sorry I'm much to tired right now to coherently debate, so I'll have to pick it up later.

[D Pope]

I expect i'm getting pretty far off topic, but as long as we're exploring OM, I can follow the idea that those mighty Atredes can some how gain access to the memories of their parents, but, when the Duncan manages to remember all his past incarnations- it seems to blow the curve for me. this is a new thing different from other OM. The BT enjoyed thier immortality by reawakening a new ghola from an old. I thought all the Duncans came from the original- none had memories of previous Duncans so how'd he do it? He could see himself as 'links of sausage... so many times killed by the tyrant.' Far as I remember, it was only his memories too, not his ansestors. In the Dune-verse I think Duncan was from relativly ordinary stock, so perhaps anyone can get some OM in one form or another?

[Freakzilla]

The last Duncan had cells from all the gholas the BT could find samples from. The real mystery is that he even got the memories from the gholas they didn't have cell samples for.



How did this happen?

Magic.

[Hunchback Jack]

Personally, I doubt if anyone merging with a post-Leto sandtrout would gain any Leto personality or memories.

I don't think any individual "pearl" of awareness would have any influence on a host, as I think they are incomplete fragments of Leto, not complete. Just as a single worm has little or no prescient influence, so would a single sandtrout have little or no Leto "identity". So I don't think anyone merging with a post-Leto sandtrout would have much "Leto-ness" as a result.

As for DNA conveying memories, I speculate that there's a distinction between being grown from cells which contain memories, and being injected with cells from someone else. A ghola's body was grown from all the cells of the same person; the memories are intrinsic to all the cells in that body. If Duncan was injected with cells from Paul, he wouldn't get Paul's memories (or his OM). So the existence of Leto-trout DNA in a new human-trout hybrid wouldn't automatically result in Leto memories.

(I don't know about Sharing; while it requires physical contact, it doesn't *appear* to be DNA-based, but I don't think FH was explicit about that. Perhaps a BG could acquire Leto's memories by merging with a trout *if* Leto's identity were complete enough, which I personally doubt).

HBJ

[D Pope]

That last paragraph is my conclusion, it comes down to how much of Him is in his pearl of awareness.

[mrpsbrk]

Venturing into whacky Duniverse genetics/science, I see two possibilities (let me know if you see more!):

(1) Leto was a true hybrid of human and sandworm, meaning mixing of DNA; or

Look, i know many people dislike this idea, but, please, does anyone have a QUOTE about Worm DNA? I mean, as far as we know, they are aliens and COULD have no DNA whatsoever, so no mixing of DNA would be possible -- even if the "aware" worms could carry DNA but then it would be... even weirder.

Anyway, i think in Ch:D the Tleilaxu Master Scytale talks about the chapterhouse worms as "The Prophet Restored" or something like that (only have the Spanish edition with me here) -- doesn't that imply that Leto is there? {i realize this goes against what i was saying just one paragraph above, but...}

[Freakzilla]

"It is difficult to understand, I know. I will die four deaths the death of the
flesh, the death of the soul, the death of the myth and the death of reason. And
all of these deaths contain the seed of resurrection."
"You will return from..."
"The seeds will return."

[SandChigger]

The sandtrout are described as haploid.

Haploid means "having only a single set of chromosomes".

If there is a form of chromosome that does not contain DNA, please tell us what it is.

Fucking mrn.

[lotek]

Scientists today announced that they have crafted a bacterial genome from scratch, moving one step closer to creating entirely synthetic life forms--living cells designed and built by humans to carry out a diverse set of tasks ranging from manufacturing biofuels to sequestering carbon dioxide.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longest-piece-of-dna-yet

[Robspierre]

That is certainly true, though as was pointed out earlier the question isn't actually how much of Leto is in his "pearls" the question is whether those pearls hold any of his DNA. If they do hold his DNA, then the DNA (in the Dune universe, not the real one obviously) would hold a full and complete copy of Leto's mind., regardless of how functional/complete the pearl is.

No, it most certainly would not. First, none of Leto's memories would be in there. Second, a recopied Leto would be no more Leto than the sheep Dolly would be of its "mother." The potential is there, but you could not guarantee (or probably even realize) a photocopy of Leto by cloning his DNA. DNA is potential, not blueprints. Any geneticist will tell you that. We could clone Thing a million times and have a million different individuals.

That's why I don't get why there are laws agains cloning humans.

Maybe you could snag the memories from Leto until he merged at age 9? But they'd have to be reawakened like a ghola right?

I always thought it would be strange that the last OM memory that you'd have from your male ancestors would be doing your female ancestors, maybe it would be just one or two days before the doing. You'd remember it as your mother though right? Either way, sexy.

I wonder how Heinlein would of worked that angle.....

Rob

[Serkanner]

I wonder how Heinlein would of worked that angle.....

Rob

Rob, you disappoint me

[Freakzilla]

[Robspierre]

I wonder how Heinlein would of worked that angle.....

Rob

Rob, you disappoint me

While he did explore limited aspects of incest, the focus of incest as VIEWED through OM is something Heinlein did not explore. Heinlein mainly focused on the genetic aspect or his World as Myth tales. OM is a very Herbert only concept.

Rob

[MrFlibble]

I wonder how Heinlein would of worked that angle.....

Rob

Rob, you disappoint me

Sorry to stray off-topic, but this phenomenon of writing of instead of 've caught my attention recently. I've encountered cases of mixed up homophones - I occasionally mix up two/to/too or suchlike words myself when I'm not careful while typing, but this case seem slightly different to me in that there's a drastic contrast between of and 've in terms of grammar, and the result almost looks like a new verb form (?). So is this case the same as other mixed-up homophones, or something else might be behind this phenomenon?

[merkin muffley]

When Onasander does it, it's a case of a mixed-up homophobe.

high five!

[Borrace]

i'm glad we all agree on this subject.

[Robspierre]

I wonder how Heinlein would of worked that angle.....

Rob

Rob, you disappoint me

Sorry to stray off-topic, but this phenomenon of writing of instead of 've caught my attention recently. I've encountered cases of mixed up homophones - I occasionally mix up two/to/too or suchlike words myself when I'm not careful while typing, but this case seem slightly different to me in that there's a drastic contrast between of and 've in terms of grammar, and the result almost looks like a new verb form (?). So is this case the same as other mixed-up homophones, or something else might be behind this phenomenon?

Technically could of and should of do not exist as verbs. The proper thing to do is to use have or write it as a verb contraction. However, could of is a hold over from my youth and a way of speaking that does break written grammatical rules.
So no, it is not a case of mixed-up homophones, more a case of how people speak, on occasion, that continues to find its way into how people write.


Rob

[MrFlibble]

So no, it is not a case of mixed-up homophones, more a case of how people speak, on occasion, that continues to find its way into how people write.

Well, if could've and could of are pronounced the same, and are confused in written speech because of this, then it's the case of mixed-up homophones (both 've and of in this case are not stressed and are thus enclitics).

[Freakzilla]

So no, it is not a case of mixed-up homophones, more a case of how people speak, on occasion, that continues to find its way into how people write.

Well, if could've and could of are pronounced the same, and are confused in written speech because of this, then it's the case of mixed-up homophones (both 've and of in this case are not stressed and are thus enclitics).

Y'all lost me with the Greek when you started talkin' 'bout homos.

[Robspierre]

So no, it is not a case of mixed-up homophones, more a case of how people speak, on occasion, that continues to find its way into how people write.

Well, if could've and could of are pronounced the same, and are confused in written speech because of this, then it's the case of mixed-up homophones (both 've and of in this case are not stressed and are thus enclitics).

I asked my Grammar professor about this. Technically, because could of and should of do not exist, it is not case of mixed-up homophones. Technically, to be considered homophones, could of and should of need to exist. Also to be considered a homophone, could of and could've must have different meanings. They can be considered contrived contractions similar to I'll and eye'll (as in my eye'll be on you.) Contrived contractions come out of conversation, which brings us back to, it is a case of how people speak that finds its way into written English.

Yes, this all hinges on could of and should of not " technically existing." if they did "technically exist" it would be a case of mixed-up homophones.

Don't you just love the wackiness of English?

Rob

[TheDukester]

Jesus wept ... technically, y'all need to get some more poontang into your lives. Soon!

[Robspierre]

Jesus wept ... technically, y'all need to get some more poontang into your lives. Soon!

Sadly Duke, I've had to resort to technicalities with some of the 7th graders during my student teaching. Some of them made the antics of lawyers down right saintly!

And no, my sex life is not lacking, thank you very much!

Rob