MENTATS (Bio-Computers of DUNE) EXPLAINED

Uncle how can we let this happen how can the emperor take everything we've built and give it to that Duke don't be too sure it's an act of love letters a gift not a gift hey guys what's happening niet here with film Comics explained as requested today we'll be exploring the mentax as featured in Frank Herbert's expansive Dune universe mentats are essentially humans trying to possess computer-like logic and computational ability following the butler in G hat for some context and backstory the butlerian g-hat was a crusade against computers thinking machines and conscious robots that began in 201 BG we must negate the machines that think humans must set their own guidelines this is not something machines can do reasoning depends upon programming not on hardware and we are the ultimate program our Jihad is a dump program we dump the things which destroy us as humans after two generations of chaos led by the butlerians the garden machine logic was overthrown by the masses and A New Concept was raised man may not be replaced following this their gods and rituals were looked upon in a different perhaps even jaded light both were largely seen to be guilty of using fear as a means of control hesitantly the leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions began meeting to exchange views by 108 BG the Jihad finished with the complete destruction of all intelligent machines that were originally built by humans this had profound impacts on the socio-political and technological development of humanity throughout the new empires that emerged including a large technological reversal of the entire human civilization the most dramatic result was the adherence of a commandment from the orange Catholic Bible that stated Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind even the simplest computers and calculators were banned with the penalty for building or owning them being death understandably the lack of technology created a severe drop in Humanity's quality of life leading to the creation of the mentat order as centuries passed two Fringe worlds accents lilacs bought technological Heights of the ixians and the Benny klilaks ixians specialized in the creation of non-thinking mechanical devices while biological technology was provided by the Telex from here the belief in the spiritual Divinity of humankind was renewed and strengthened as a component of the Jihad specifically in contrast to the evil thinking machines the last major impact of the Jihad was the rise of a new system a feudal arranged Galactic order that lasted for several thousand more years under the rule of house Carino that was of course until the MUA Deep's Jihad and the rise of the god Emperor later were trades II which I've already extensively covered in videos I'll be leaving links to below the Carino Empire was composed of several new and Powerful groups including the spacing Guild the Benny Jesuit cone the landsrad and the great houses how much will it cost them traveling all this way for this formality three Guild Navigators a total of 1.46 million 62 Solaris round trip the name mentat is derived from mentis meaning of the Mind in Latin the founder of the order of mentats gilbertus albens a logician and philosopher of interstellar repute coined the term to refer to those fully trained and proficient in the techniques that he prescribed albums had essentially conceived the program of far-reaching importance one spring morning in 1231 he while reading on the butlerian Jihad it occurred to him that the legendary computers had been built by humans and it seemed unlikely that they'd possess capacities Beyond those of the trained human mind over the next few years he devised a plan of study for the production of human computers which he named mentats during the raid of Mikhail the Builder in 1234 AG he recruited students for the program and created the order the early order located on Septimus consisted of three ranks of adepts memorizers processes and hypothesis realizing his mission was constrained by financial difficulties Albans allowed trainees to publicize mental abilities in math practice this led to the relocation of the order house with albums traveling to exhibit their skills and advertisers program to potential clients in 1246 he gained a contract with the guild to relocate to telelax for a percentage of tile profits the toilets agreed to supply the order with military protection beginning in association with regrettable consequences centuries later their albums trained a number of hypothesis and undertook an effective campaign to persuade column directors of the extraordinary value of mentats his living computers the role of mentat required a certain degree of mental ability and strict mental conditioning though not all mentats were of equal ability all were typically able to guarantee employment with one of the power Brokers of the known universe prospective meant hats were required to have both the inner predisposition necessary to make the training effective and what albums referred to as a call to reason to make the discipline tolerable given these qualities following a solemn decision and much preliminary trading the initiate would be welcomed into the actual program as a novice memorizer training began as early as possible even in infancy of strong potential was noted this stimulated sensory awareness through sound color texture odor taste kinetic awareness warmth cold emotional awareness through fear Joy anger love hate and security during childhood the future mentats developmentally and physically in rigorous year-round programs as a means to broaden cognition and to resist specialization severe punishment was used for neglecting one study in favor of another everything is important and nothing is more important than everything was the motto of the mentat training school a strict and unforgiving disciplinary code promoted Alvin's goal that every child should be completely self-directed by 15. campus construction and maintenance the evening silence and the weekly fasts were more of the tasks that they had to perform it should be noted that breaches and performance were punished by mantats with a severity that they'd learned in turn from their predecessors develop strategy as well as physical skill aided the code and the six day a week curriculum either produced a fully ready candidate or a failure in the final year students were grounded in pre-propositional and predicate logic inference modal deduction trans infinite induction statistics multivalent analysis conceptual synthesis and dimensional geometry formal Linguistics and transcendental phenomenology these studies provided the mental linkages to accept subsequent mental training should the student succeed in mastering them assuming the success of the early conditioning in education age 15 was the year of decision of sponsorship as a mentac candidate the applicants in secluded themselves and meditated awaiting their calling to be heard to gain acceptance sadly for some it never came for others the vocation Grew From patient deliberation for a few a flash from the core of being cried yes to the opportunities and dangers of Life as a mentat those who never received the call were not disgraced and served the order in a variety of ways as teachers of the young administrators or in the auxiliary the friends of the order of mentats but if the call did come the order rejoiced for this was a momentous achievement everyone would pledge to help and support the cold one throughout their life whatever their final progress through the ranks of the order [Music] unlike computers mentats were not simple human calculators instead the exceptional cognitive abilities of memory and perception are the foundations for super logical hypothesizing mentats were able to gather large amounts of data and devise concise analysis in a process that goes far beyond logical deduction they cultivate the naive mind the mind without preconception or Prejudice that can extract the essential patterns or logic of data and deliver with varying degrees of certainty and useful conclusions indeed this ability saw many military commanders and political leaders undergo some form of mental training the ability to become a mentat was a talent limited to a small number thus those with the discipline were prized in whatever role they chose there are also varying degrees of ability of course and then tax capabilities can be greatly increased by taking sappho juice but using it leads to an addiction that turns to use his lips a shade of red and mentality depth could be characterized as a human in the generic Benny Jesuit sense although The Sisterhood would deny it violently claiming one to instead be an animal with reason and logic an expert in all methods of logic and inference a conceptual generalist in contrast to specialists in narrow areas and one possessing a quasi-truth sense based not on prescience but on inference of course this saw them used extensively by the great houses primarily as political advisors for the rise of God Emperor later or trades II thanks to their vast memories and ability to organize huge amounts of data they often provided valuable insights that would otherwise be lost they were even used begrudgingly by the belly Jesuit for thousands of years Society thought of men tattoos the embodiment of logic and reason the mental debt was capable of achieving remarkable inferential linkages and Sparks of pure Insight especially when in a mental trance sector 6A took up the sixth the sum of the eighth quadrant of the ninth plus 84 circles with the agent called the fourth copy perhaps because of their apparent need to rely on this isolating trance state for higher percentages of accuracy mentax historically failed As Leaders some even argue that the muadib himself was partly unsuccessful because he tried too often to approach complex social and political problems only through his mental training in leadership is a matter of temperament not just reasoning ability and the effective leader must often make intuitive decisions in the absence of complete data mentats are trained to avoid such judgments when at all possible a good leader acts because a decision must be made and meant at delays because a decision should not be made I remember the first step in avoiding a trap is knowing of its existence I know but if it is a trap then why are we going I want to see these harvesting Fields myself I wouldn't recommend it have this judge of the change accompany us a hostage I love it here I'd like to point out that men tattoo are required to operate within an ethical framework which for some purposes was not desired thus the many skilax were known to condition some men tats to be twisted the Twisted men's hats were able to compute Trends free of any ethical restraints or limitations casting a dark shade on the order from the earliest days of the order Albin saw little connection between skill as a leader and Excellence as a mentat therefore in naming the six racks he avoided titles that suggested action president director manager and the like in favor of titles that emphasize processes and relationships the three Junior ranks were named in ascending order memorizer processor and hypothesis memorize it was the first rank of the mentat training program the final test involved absorbing a series of numbers and letters and reproducing them in correct sequence duplicating the same timing or spacing as the original the fully prepared memorizer was capable of retaining both related and unrelated information memorizers were able to repeat entire books from recall or replicate spatial configurations such as the layout of a city after having seen the place or plans of it only once they could even repeat conversations word for word from start to finish mimicking the Cadence and vocal inflection of each participant column directors especially appreciated the record-keeping ability of memorizers since the butlerian Jihad had destroyed the most efficient means of storing the voluminous records of interplanetary Commerce however it should be noted that there were not exploited commercially because albums insisted the minimum rank required for a mentac could be sold was that of a hypothesis even in the order's difficult early years he insisted that a public representative of our order must be able to do more than just sponge up data chew on it and blat it out in unhelpful chunks albums also worked hardest to help young memorizers avoid what he called the Babel problem becoming overwhelmed by the minutia of data the best defense against Babel was further training to categorize the data processes were the second of the early three ranks of the mentat order they teamed to combine divide sort and file pieces of discrete information with 99.9985 accuracy per 10 000 items capable of introducing order and regularity to seemingly unrelated sets of information albums noted that the clear danger to processes was that the order they introduced ought or might not Accord with reality because of this they were trained to attempt first to use the categories and labels that others provided the Sorting sifting and retrieval of information as well as the ability to connect it with specific names places or events was valuable Beyond estimation of the three ranks processors were the most vulnerable their training stressed unquestioning acceptance of the direction of others and they were therefore totally dependent on The Good Will of those around them in the training house they were safely in the care of the order until they progressed the relative security of the third rank hypothesis hypothesis where the next rank of the mentat order beyond that of the processor they were trained to extrapolate from information to Alternative explanations of the courses or the effects of that information they often prided themselves in the number of differing interpretations they could see in a set of events a sample question how many motives might the more deep have had for walking into the desert might produce as many as seven possible reasons for his action the hypothesis could naturally provide his master with at least a two-place ranking of the likelihood of the interpretation he offered the primary hypothesis was 92 to 98 reliable commercially hypothesis could be used to speculate on future market conditions commodity prices outcomes of various economic tactics and likelihood changes in consumption of planets and populations the first mentat hypothesis went to comb but albums realized they could be remarkably useful to governance not just in the bureaucratic tasks they could feel planetary Governors heads of houses generals and politicians would all welcome reliable objective loyal discreet and accurate advisors but the existing mentality could not feel these roles as effectively just yet after joining the order Groudon or parplate III revised mentat handbook to include three senior ranks these were generalist simulationist and advisor and plates handbook remained virtually unchanged throughout the history of the order of mentats generalist was the first of the mentat major ranks they appeared haughty and pedantic overcoming the naive literalism of the junior orders by bringing to decision making a healthy common sense in achieving awareness of the broad sweep of what is happening in his Universe the journalists risk believing himself Supreme in his encyclopedic store of knowledge they were expected to possess Broad and accurate knowledge of at least 94.75 percent of everything occurring in his Universe of course this amazing knowledge led many to annoy their comrades with an overblown sense of superiority the mentat handbook warned that principles of expertise can change that no one can catalog all knowledge and that the journalist was himself part of the set of phenomena to be learned but even with these caveats there were extremely difficult people to work with a simulation is the next major rank free their reasoning from dependence on absolutes and was able to correct for assumptions hidden in another's inferences the simulation has saw every human being has a set of behavior patterns ready to be orchestrated they conceived and proposed in detail alternative future courses of action and explanation of events economic political and Military strategy depended heavily on the unfolding of options by simulationists they could easily offer his master up to 10 courses of action and even infer the dozens of possible consequences of pursuing altering combining or disengaging any of these courses advisor was the coveted Sixth and last of the rank of the mentat order and only one in 20 of the novices achieved it advices were skilled in wisdom and diplomacy possessing the abilities of all the lower ranks but also with sophistication and understanding so vital were they that one advisor was equal in price and value to a sardica legion or a block of Comb shares advisors plan for the long run and negotiated delicate scenarios they judge to be matters of life and death regularly a field Marshal a planetary Governor or column director would seek help from an advisor before taking key actions a mental advisor was essentially thought to be able to transform a mediocre ruler into a respected leader and a better than average ruler into a potential Emperor and so by the nine thousands no great house lacked a mentat advisor they became so vital to almost every major decision taken in the universe that the lost soul death of an advisor was disastrous to the fortunes of a house my Advanced team has secured the city we're still smoothing out a few rough spots so I failed you today there's no excuse you have my resignation you would deprive us of your talents at this time they try to take the life of my son despite the immense benefit of using a mentor their unique training did sometimes come with problems memorize a babble processor naivete and generalist Pride were commonly experienced by the junior ranks but other conditions could impairment Hat's ability such as mental freeze sappho Addiction in addition to rajia and verbal dependence generalists and higher ranked men hats were vulnerable to the mentap-free syndrome which sprang from self-doubt mentats are taught to transcend the narrowness of specialization but no human being could be entirely free from the element of uncertainty that Transcendence implies repeated and strenuous questioning of a mentax computations did not lead to new computations those were eventually determined but to anxiety about the base of those computations senior ranked mentats were repeatedly warned that wavering was the first step toward the totally disabling mental freeze which halted all functions permanently unless the doubt could be removed and confidence restored the rehabilitation of Frozen meant hat consumed a long process of hypnosis counseling and the ultimate rebuilding of a personality strengthened to resist self-doubt so devastating was mental freeze that even if recovery was complete there was an insuperable impediment to progression up the ranks and so recuperated fifth and sixth ranked mentats were reduced to appropriate Junior levels mentats were then often haunted by fear of freezing particularly those who labored alone far from the protective support of the order house or other senior mentats self-doubt attacked the solitary mentap with great speed and force and buyers were advised to protect their investment by abstaining from chronic criticism of their mentats there are several cases known of houses trying to freeze a rival's mentat by feeding false information to undermine confidence in their database a dangerous strategy for avoiding self-doubt was Reliant in absolutes mentats naturally preferred known parameters to help establish the limits of inference and absolutes could increase accuracy by reducing Alternatives besides lending a feeling of self-assurance absolutes appeal to mentats as shortcuts only problem was that the abuse of absolutes was easy and often led to unnoticed hypotheses being overlooked options unexplored and even fallacious inferences based on wrong assumptions Groudon vigorously counted over-dependence on absolutes through exercises and conceived reality with radical differences such mental gymnastics promoted an awareness of the role of unconscious assumptions and absolutes and mental thinking during the unprecedented economic growth of the Imperium the order faced significant problems like radical neo-butlerians over the centuries among the most violent were the palaceman leftists who considered men tattoos traitors who turned their minds into organic machines the tleelax could not guarantee the security of mentats scattered over a thousand worlds and the necessity of Defense led to the inclusion of martial arts into the curriculum the janaz school of Masters ultimate provided training to advise Iraq mentats thus helping to create the specialization of mentad Assassins by the 10th Millennium men had assassins such as thufar hawat or Peter DeVries became essential for a major house with higher aspirations the truly regrettable waste in mental specialization was a failure to link mental trading with either the spacing Guild or the benergesri programs with all attempts met with hostility one society that welcomed meant had experience was the Benny tillylax they boasted it through their experiment in controlled mutation they'd combined mental ability with specially tailored accomplishments or perversions of Their Own one result was a notorious KMP or kilimentat program albin's had warned against combining mental training with any form of specialization but with the passage of Millennia his warnings were ignored most disastrously by Proctor hibenus the 11th in 1054 A.G hibena supplied them with third and fourth ranked hats for experiments the aim to achieve a genetic substructure to ground a new streamlined mental training program although the plan was sold as a low risk way of multiplying well-qualified mentats its ultimate result was the destruction of the order the Benny talax gained access to the secret mentap programs but their products were out of failures rebellious against their masters disloyal to the order and guilty of heinous miscalculations taly likes men tatt were worse than useless causing the reputation of the order to plunge an even reliable mentats to be mistrusted from this catastrophe arose the fear of Twisted mentats the order of meant hats never regained its former Prestige but it still enjoyed limited respect in some sectors until the reign of later trades II who brought new problems during the first thousand years his fish speakers in planetary administrators systematically promoted mentat doubt this scheme was Leto's other place steel fisted policies led to a diminished need for men tatts and greater public suspicion of their contributions all known meant had advisors and lower ranking mentat were required to register with planetary Governors and secure special permission to travel between planets during the 3500 year rule they like many other groups were dispersed in the scattering and outlawed by the god Emperor with a renegade training schools destroyed later officially outlawed mentat training in the year 11745 he within 90 years all known mentats died and the vacant order house on Telex was sealed for centuries the house was later reopened as a museum but when the public was permitted access no papers manuals or instructional guides were found among the records one never actually confirmed or denied there Remains the possibility that the Benny Jesuit had actually stolen the missing material to incorporate mental training into their own programs by an irony of History lato II was forced to rely on Reverend mother Antioch who contrary to his order was alleged to be a fully trained ment had advisor in the last year of his life he asked Antioch to undertake a journey to Wix where she died without reporting to her mother house either the nature or the result of that mission dying with her was the hopes dreams and deeds of an order that was instrumental in maintaining balance in the universe for Millennia with that said that's all for today folks a huge thanks to everyone that requested to explore the mentats don't forget to hit like And subscribe if you enjoyed the video and if there's anything else you'd like to request please don't hesitate to ask as always it's been a pleasure niet here with film Comics explained thanks for stopping by by Will alone I set my mind in motion it is by the juice of sapu that thoughts acquire speed the lips acquire stains It Is by Will alone I set my mind in motion [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music]

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Length: 24min 14sec (1454 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 06 2022