Call me Moabdib

 

At one time I read all of the Dune books by Herbert. I think it was after the first movie by David Lynch came out. It was weirder than shit like all David Lynch films and didn't quite do the books justice, but I will always remember the line when the lead Fremin says to Paul Atreides (played by Kyle MacLachlan) "I will call you Moabdib." For some reason it struck me as oddly funny. And I like the way Moabdib sounded. It rolls off the tongue like lugubrious.

But the thing neither of the Dune films really captures (largely because Herbert wrote a whole series of Dune books) was Paul Atreides eventual ability (brought on by exposure to Spice and the Bene Gesserit "Agony" ritual) to access all of the memories and experiences of his biological ancestors. He doesn't just remember his own life, he draws on the experiences, skills, and perspectives of all of his ancestors. Not only can he see the past, but the past helps him evaluate the future (even technically not see it).

This fascinated me because I think it is basically a version of Carl Jung's collective unconscious. Jung proposed that underneath each person's individual unconscious lies a shared, inherited layer of the psyche. These are the archetypes that reappear across cultures and time. It isn't exactly personal memories like Paul Atreides had.  They are supposed to exist because of heredity, not experience.  But it helps explain the similar themes in myths around the world. People are drawing on the same well of symbolic structures. 

The concept has cropped up in my deep conversations with AI over the past few days. Funny how these philosophical and spiritual ideas weave in and out of literature and movies I've encountered. Creating the title of this post, "Call me Moabdib" made me think of "Call me Ishmael" from Melville's Moby-Dick.

I've written plenty of times about actually detesting the book and most of Melville's works. Part of it is because it was written in the vernacular of his time and is dense and dry as dust in the minutia of his descriptions of whaling and sailing. But like it or not, Melville's great white whale is that elusive thing that lies just out of reach of our understanding...kind of like my search for meaning.  At times the whale is god-like. Other times it seems symbolic of the power of nature and the sea. To Ahab, it was the epitome of all that is wrong with the world. To Starbuck the whale was just one of god's creations. To Ishmael it was a philosophical puzzle.  And to Queequeg the whale was just part of his system of rituals and taboos.

So I file the white whale as another of those things just out of reach that I don't quite understand. 

Thar she blows!