Speaker 1: You've heard of animals chewing awful leg to escape a trap.
Speaker 1: There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain
Speaker 1: in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he
Speaker 1: might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.
Speaker 1: Once men turned their thinking over to machines and hopes
Speaker 1: that this would set them free, but that only permitted
Speaker 1: other men with machines to enslave them. The Great Revolt
Speaker 1: took away a crutch. It forced human minds to develop.
Speaker 1: Schools were started to train human talents. Welcome to stot
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. I know,
Speaker 1: ever since that New Done movie came out, you have
Speaker 1: been just itching to do another Science of Done episode
Speaker 1: like the ones we did a few years back. But
Speaker 1: obviously that happened right in the middle of October when
Speaker 1: we had a bunch of other stuff planned. So it
Speaker 1: seems like today is the day the spillover from October
Speaker 1: is continuing yet again. Uh yeah, and I mean in
Speaker 1: a way, it's a spillover from the October from before
Speaker 1: last that the original release date for the new Done adaptation.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you're right. Yeah. So yeah, we, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been have been really hungry
Speaker 1: for this film to come out, um, because I knew
Speaker 1: it would also just in general reignite, uh my fascination
Speaker 1: with the Done universe, um, and you know, introduced new
Speaker 1: people to the Done universe. Um. And of course to
Speaker 1: correspond with that, we would need to go back in
Speaker 1: and do some new Dooe episodes um, because like you said,
Speaker 1: we did a few, or we did a couple years ago, um,
Speaker 1: and now we're dipping back in. I think that was
Speaker 1: my first or second year on the show, so it
Speaker 1: was a long time ago now, yeah, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: quite a while. And and since then we've had people
Speaker 1: fairly frequently right in and say, oh, you should do
Speaker 1: some more of those. We'd like to hear more of those.
Speaker 1: So well, here you go. You asked for it, You're
Speaker 1: gonna get it. Um. I think uh, I think I
Speaker 1: think we may be doing a couple of episodes here,
Speaker 1: but I thought we'd start with the ben and ingestre
Speaker 1: it um with a with a particular focus on the
Speaker 1: gom Jabbar awareness test. So this is a pivotal early
Speaker 1: scene in the book, and it's also a memorable sequence
Speaker 1: from all three adaptations. Um that it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it occurs so early in the novel
Speaker 1: that even if you try to read Doone and didn't
Speaker 1: finish it, you probably read this part because it happens
Speaker 1: almost immediately. I I read this scene several times before
Speaker 1: I actually made it all the way through the book.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I mentioned this on the show before,
Speaker 1: but when I first tried to read the book, I
Speaker 1: think one of the big problems as I was reading
Speaker 1: a really bad paperback copy with extremely tiny print and
Speaker 1: small margins. Have you come across this this mass printing. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's like a it's on microfilm and it has a
Speaker 1: little magnifier that comes out of the spine. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: the Orange Catholic Bible version. It's not very fun to read. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so I never actually completed the book until I
Speaker 1: got like a more readable physical copy. Well that makes sense,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But so I remember this scene quite
Speaker 1: well because I've been through it a number of times. Well. Um,
Speaker 1: but before we're going further though, I want to drive
Speaker 1: home a few different points here. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: as much as possible, we're focusing on the first book
Speaker 1: and its adaptations, uh, the stuff that most people are
Speaker 1: gonna be familiar with, So we're we're gonna try not to,
Speaker 1: for the most part, go too deep and get into
Speaker 1: territory that that casual dune enthusiasts will not understand. Also
Speaker 1: along those lines, we have to stress that we are
Speaker 1: not done experts, we are not lower masters, um. As
Speaker 1: much as we we like uh the world here, I um,
Speaker 1: I believe. Let's say you've only read the first novel, correct,
Speaker 1: and I've it's been a while since I've read the others.
Speaker 1: I'm actually diving back in right now. So basically what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is we may get something wrong, we may
Speaker 1: misinterpret something in the books, and if that happens, well,
Speaker 1: you know, right in we're happy to be corrected. Now.
Speaker 1: Another thing I want to stress here is that I
Speaker 1: have not read Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's prequel
Speaker 1: and sequel books, so I can't speak to any lower
Speaker 1: choices made in those books. Uh. I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from anyone who has read them as it relates to
Speaker 1: what we're discussing here. Um, and I'm all for folks
Speaker 1: enjoying these books, but again, uh, they're not something I
Speaker 1: have read. I should also point out that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: probably reference the nineteen four Dune Encyclopedia a little bit.
Speaker 1: This is one of my most treasured books. I I
Speaker 1: fondly remember reading a very ragged copy of it in
Speaker 1: the library when I was a kid. Um, and I'm
Speaker 1: not I think I could check it out. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: They didn't classify it as a reference so you could
Speaker 1: check this book out. And I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time reading through through that and I somehow picked a
Speaker 1: copy up for like twenty bucks several years ago. It
Speaker 1: goes for crazy amounts on eBay. Now. But wait, which
Speaker 1: library was this? What? What library had a copy of
Speaker 1: the Dune Encyclopedia. It was just a small town Tennessee library. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: they just had it. And um, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: Dun's popularity is widespread, so I guess it's not that
Speaker 1: that's strange. But yeah, it was very ragged, and um,
Speaker 1: I was very fond of it. And then he had
Speaker 1: had to look up a copy of the years later.
Speaker 1: It's it's long out of print. It's probably never going
Speaker 1: to be in print again. Um. And it's also not
Speaker 1: entirely cannon um, but I refer to it anyway because
Speaker 1: it's awesome. It was it was an approved work at
Speaker 1: the time with an encouraging intro from Frank Herbert UM.
Speaker 1: But it was written by various other authors. But if
Speaker 1: you had a chance to look through it, um, you know,
Speaker 1: grant grab it because it has recipes, it has wonderful illustrations,
Speaker 1: it has all of this additional background info. It seems
Speaker 1: this is just me looking in for the most part
Speaker 1: from the outside, but it seems like as a whole.
Speaker 1: With like with Doune Lore, you basically have like three
Speaker 1: different tiers. They're the original Herbert novels, the Frank Herbert novels.
Speaker 1: There's there's the lore of the Dune encyclopedia, and then
Speaker 1: there's the additional um arm of it that is created
Speaker 1: by by his son Brian Herbert and his novels sequel
Speaker 1: in prequel novels. Oh no, So, now that there's a
Speaker 1: big release of Dune by I guess it's by a
Speaker 1: subsidiary of Warner Brothers. Is that right? Are we gonna
Speaker 1: get a situation like Star Wars? Where now canon is
Speaker 1: being decided by the media corporation that owns the rights
Speaker 1: to the Dune movie. Um, I don't think so, because
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of a I think there's a
Speaker 1: certain amount of control held by um by Brian Herbert.
Speaker 1: If I'm not okay, if I'm not mistaken, Um I
Speaker 1: don't so. I don't know exactly how it's how it's
Speaker 1: gonna work out, but I don't think it's quite at
Speaker 1: the like the Disney level where you have like a
Speaker 1: council that decides on on matters, but I have I
Speaker 1: think the plan still is that we're going to get
Speaker 1: a Binny jesser At television series, so that's going to
Speaker 1: be interesting. Yeah, But what I want to know is, like,
Speaker 1: is the Doinge Encyclopedia's recipe for spice melange omelets going
Speaker 1: to be you know, B canon or ccnon or what's
Speaker 1: the Oh yeah, yeah, that that the the pre Disney
Speaker 1: Lucas you know, multi tiered classification system. Uh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pre Disney. Sorry, I can't keep I think Disney came
Speaker 1: in and simplified matters to a certain extent, so I
Speaker 1: don't think there as many classifications. But um so I
Speaker 1: don't know, who knows what will happen with Done if
Speaker 1: Done can, that's assuming like Done has like real staying
Speaker 1: power is a mainstream commodity. I hope it does. I
Speaker 1: hope that that we see at least through Doing Messiah
Speaker 1: with this this current slate of films. Oh, I guess
Speaker 1: I hadn't said, by the way, but I finally did
Speaker 1: see the new movie and it's absolutely marvelous, just amazing, excellently. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we'll have to to chat more and more about that.
Speaker 1: Um So, so let's go ahead and just talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the background of the Benigester, like who
Speaker 1: are the Benigesta and how they feature into the world
Speaker 1: of Dune. Um you know, so for many of you,
Speaker 1: this is going to be just stuff you already know.
Speaker 1: Others you might be a little foggy on some of
Speaker 1: the details. And I don't know if if you've only
Speaker 1: watched the film, maybe you picked up on most of this,
Speaker 1: but maybe not all of it. So Dune takes place
Speaker 1: in the distant future. Humans have spread out from Old
Speaker 1: Earth and they've inhabited various worlds. While they encounter native
Speaker 1: organisms on these planets, including the mighty sandworms, of Iracus,
Speaker 1: they do not encounter other intelligent life forms. So subsequently
Speaker 1: there are there are no intelligent life forms in the
Speaker 1: Dune Universe that are not human or at least human derived.
Speaker 1: By the later works, Old Earth is said to be gone,
Speaker 1: and we just have this vast diaspora of human colonized worlds.
Speaker 1: All right, So there's a big interplanetary empire spans a
Speaker 1: big chunk of the galaxy, but it is not populated
Speaker 1: by all different types of intelligent aliens like say the
Speaker 1: Star Wars universe, is right, and so that's something that
Speaker 1: definitely makes it stand apart from some of these other, um,
Speaker 1: you know, sci fi franchises. Now, I suppose that's like
Speaker 1: the first big historical point in the Dune Universe is
Speaker 1: people left Earth and started colonizing other worlds. But the
Speaker 1: other big one, uh, and this one, you know, sets
Speaker 1: it apart from from from a number of sci fi
Speaker 1: visions as well, is that you have this thing called
Speaker 1: the Butlerian Jihad, in which these spacefaring humans rebelled against
Speaker 1: their alliance on so called thinking machines, on computers and
Speaker 1: conscious AI and and also more subtly, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's implied against a machine way of thinking. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so this gives rise to one of the most unique
Speaker 1: things about the sci fi setting of Dune. It is
Speaker 1: a space faring science fiction saga without computers in it,
Speaker 1: or I mean mostly without computers. Instead, computing tasks in
Speaker 1: the Done universe are done by humans who specially train
Speaker 1: their brains to do the kinds of things computers would
Speaker 1: normally have to do. So you have figures like the
Speaker 1: Men Tats, you know, sort of human computers, or the
Speaker 1: the Guild Navigators who would do what a computer would
Speaker 1: do in most other sci fi right. Yeah, so they're
Speaker 1: all obeying these various edicts like thou shalt not create
Speaker 1: a machine and the likeness of a human mind, or
Speaker 1: thou shalt not disfigure the soul. Uh. There's a great
Speaker 1: quote in the appendix to doone um to the novel
Speaker 1: that says, then came the Butlet and Jahad, two generations
Speaker 1: of chaos. The god of machine logic was overthrown among
Speaker 1: the masses, and a new concept raised. Man may not
Speaker 1: be replaced. And I know we've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I always thought that that's an interesting touch, the
Speaker 1: idea that, uh, that it's not just like the war
Speaker 1: with the machines imagined in say the Terminator films, where
Speaker 1: it's well, the machines wanted to destroy us, so we
Speaker 1: fought against them. There is more of a suggestion of
Speaker 1: kind of subtle psychological revolt and in more complexity to
Speaker 1: the conflict between humans and thinking machines that a lot
Speaker 1: of the conflict seems to have been rooted in human
Speaker 1: resentment of what the thinking machines represented within human culture. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I always liked how that idea seemed to have
Speaker 1: been given room to breathe. You know. Um, it's not
Speaker 1: like here's here's blow by blow what happened during the
Speaker 1: Balerian Jahade. Here's sort of forced to, uh, to imagine
Speaker 1: what it might have consisted of. Yeah, it happened like
Speaker 1: ten thousand years ago and is now the basis of
Speaker 1: of major religions of the of the Empire in Dune. Now.
Speaker 1: The Butalian Jahade is said to have lasted from the
Speaker 1: year two hundred big to the year one oh eight
Speaker 1: b G. And I know some of you are saying, well,
Speaker 1: what what is b G? What does this mean? This
Speaker 1: means before guild, which leads to the next point without yeah,
Speaker 1: without thinking machines. Humans have to turn largely inward in
Speaker 1: order to manage this interstellar civilization. And without thinking machines
Speaker 1: to augment human cognition, they had to enhance human cognition itself.
Speaker 1: And this, believe brings us to these different classes of
Speaker 1: of humans and human factions. So we have the Spacing Guild.
Speaker 1: We're told it's a mental physical training school aimed at
Speaker 1: developing humans capable of handling space travel, particularly the dangerous
Speaker 1: navigation of hyperspace that was key to interstellar travel. And
Speaker 1: this is actually where you know, if you know anything
Speaker 1: about doing, you've probably heard the phrase the spice must flow.
Speaker 1: You know that it has something to do with a
Speaker 1: brutal contest for a natural resource known as spice and
Speaker 1: uh the rule. And so I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people have, you know, critics have compared spice to oil,
Speaker 1: say in the real world, saying that it's this all
Speaker 1: important natural resource that makes basically everything in the economy possible.
Speaker 1: It makes uh, it makes travel possible, it makes delivery
Speaker 1: of goods and services possible. And that is largely the
Speaker 1: case in June, but not by being an energy source
Speaker 1: that powers spaceships, but rather, the spice is a drug
Speaker 1: that makes the navigation of space by human minds possible.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, would telling that it. It basically allows
Speaker 1: members of the Space and Guild and navigators in particular,
Speaker 1: to see possible futures, to see just a little bit
Speaker 1: into the future, so that they can avoid all the
Speaker 1: various disasters that are can occur during this, uh, this
Speaker 1: sort of space travel. Yeah, so like you, you take
Speaker 1: the spice and then you can kind of hallucinate fractal
Speaker 1: mathematics that allow you to to to see enough into
Speaker 1: the future or or see possible futures well enough that
Speaker 1: you can navigate the harsh terrain of outer space or
Speaker 1: folded space in particular. I'm not sure exactly what that means,
Speaker 1: but it's it's how they travel between the stars, right.
Speaker 1: And then, like we mentioned o theire, they're also the
Speaker 1: mint ats, the humans bred and trained to act in
Speaker 1: the place of computers and thinking machines, uh, kind of
Speaker 1: futuristics of its capable of carrying out really advanced computations
Speaker 1: in their head and also I guess just carrying around
Speaker 1: a lot of information. Yeah, you might see them as
Speaker 1: a kind of advisor or concigliary who has an internal
Speaker 1: computer within their brain, right, I have to say, I
Speaker 1: like in the new film how they they had a
Speaker 1: mentat's sort of rolling their eyes back in their head
Speaker 1: while computing things. This is kind of a nice visual touch,
Speaker 1: I can. I think that's one of the challenges of
Speaker 1: any of these adaptations of of Done is that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of written material that you either have to
Speaker 1: you know, just commit to including a lot of narration
Speaker 1: and added dialogue about what they are and how they operate,
Speaker 1: or you need to find and focus on ways to
Speaker 1: visually represent them. And uh, and I think all the
Speaker 1: films have have succeeded to varying degrees in that, you know,
Speaker 1: like these these characters look like that. They all look
Speaker 1: like this, they all have this hairstyle or lack of hairstyle.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is I think always going to be.
Speaker 1: One of the real difficult cult is in adapting Dune
Speaker 1: like a lot. I mean, Dune is not unique in
Speaker 1: this regard. A lot of great science fiction and fantasy works.
Speaker 1: The real pleasure in them is in the world that
Speaker 1: they established. It's like a really richly imagined, an interesting
Speaker 1: alternate world. So a lot of the pleasure of the
Speaker 1: story comes in getting a lot of that rich detail
Speaker 1: about the world. But how do you, Yeah, how do
Speaker 1: you cram that into a narrative? How do you put
Speaker 1: that on screen without just like explaining it. You could
Speaker 1: have a narrator just telling the audience a bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: but that can get really tedious. So how do you
Speaker 1: do it? And I think again, the new movie, I
Speaker 1: think mostly navigates this really well. It finds good, succinct
Speaker 1: ways to communicate some of these rich, strange details of
Speaker 1: the situation. Yeah, it's seen that way to me as well. Though,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from anyone out there who just
Speaker 1: went into this cult um, because I've only heard like
Speaker 1: one secondhand account of this where someone who's you know,
Speaker 1: they thought the baron was the emperor sort of a thing. Like, So,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if that's like a common misconception based on
Speaker 1: not knowing what to expect, or um, if that's you know,
Speaker 1: just something that this individual had. Well, I mean, that
Speaker 1: could be a totally fair criticism. If you go in
Speaker 1: unfamiliar i mean, the Dune world, I think this problem
Speaker 1: is going to be sort of inevitable, Like the dune world.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot. There's a lot of detail. It's
Speaker 1: very complicated. If you're going to tell the story in
Speaker 1: the kind of rich way that that makes it come alive,
Speaker 1: a lot of that detail is going to be in there,
Speaker 1: and so it can be easy to miss things. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. All right, Well let's come back to the
Speaker 1: Bennie Jesser. So, the Beni Jessri are related to these
Speaker 1: other groups, but they untill they predate both of them. Uh.
Speaker 1: They so they expanded with humanity across the stars and
Speaker 1: the whole time, they're kind of working in the shadows,
Speaker 1: functioning in many cases like a shadow government and behind
Speaker 1: the guise of a semi mystical organization. They're a mostly
Speaker 1: female organization who are particularly adept at manipulating religious culture. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have seemed to have abilities related to mind control
Speaker 1: and hypnosis. They have intense physical and mental conditioning that
Speaker 1: make them really potent operatives and combatants. So you know,
Speaker 1: they can really hold their own and we see them
Speaker 1: do that in the movie, of course, um at least
Speaker 1: in what we see Jessica Paul's mom to actually is
Speaker 1: of course a Bennie jess It. They also make use
Speaker 1: of spice themselves to sort of enhance these talents, and
Speaker 1: we're also told they're aided by a kind of union
Speaker 1: collective on consciousness. One thing I think is interesting about
Speaker 1: the Bennie Jesser it is they exist within the Dune
Speaker 1: universe kind of at the boundary of of hard science
Speaker 1: fiction and fantasy, because there's a lot that they do
Speaker 1: that seems right on the border of is this magic, right, Like,
Speaker 1: Dune doesn't include overt magic, you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: people who are majors or casting spells or anything. But
Speaker 1: the Bennie Jesser in particular, can do a lot of
Speaker 1: things that it is assumed that there is no magic involved,
Speaker 1: and they are working by just some kind of obscure
Speaker 1: physical mechanism, but you might not understand what that mechanism is, right,
Speaker 1: And they guard their secrets too, But this also leads
Speaker 1: to their critics saying, oh, well, they're a bunch of wages.
Speaker 1: That's witchcraft what they're doing now. One of their big
Speaker 1: games in the in the books, of course, is especially
Speaker 1: the first book, is the selective breeding of the Quisots
Speaker 1: hot iraq Uh not a mirror men tab but a
Speaker 1: kind of super men tab they want to make essentially
Speaker 1: a living some supercomputer, uh quote, one who can be
Speaker 1: many places at once. And Herbert explains uh quote, in
Speaker 1: simpler terms, what they sought was a human with mental
Speaker 1: powers permitting him to understand and use higher ordered dimensions.
Speaker 1: And this fits into a very complicated power seeking plot
Speaker 1: that they have about essentially trying to create a galactic Messiah. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: I guess in short, the benidgester, I mean, you say
Speaker 1: all these things out loud in a quick summary, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's an awful lot um uh, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of like, you know, you're gonna fit this faction
Speaker 1: into a movie along with all these other interesting factions
Speaker 1: and families and so forth, and not to mention the
Speaker 1: various technologies and organisms, um, you know, all all all
Speaker 1: the more credit to any of these adaptations that have
Speaker 1: pulled that off. Uh. They have a lot of tricks
Speaker 1: up their sleeve, many of which might seem like witchcraft
Speaker 1: of the casual observer. But we're gonna come back to that.
Speaker 1: That that first big one that we see the sort
Speaker 1: of our in our real introduction to the Benegestrate is
Speaker 1: of course the gom Jabbar awareness test. All right, this
Speaker 1: is the scene we were talking about right at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the novel that I've read multiple times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I even read up to around this part to my son,
Speaker 1: thinking like I picked up soon after many years, and
Speaker 1: maybe it's maybe he'd like it. Uh, And we got
Speaker 1: made about that fire and I was then I was reminded, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is maybe a little this is too dense for
Speaker 1: him right now. You know, it will save this one
Speaker 1: for later. But but yeah, it's a great scene, and
Speaker 1: we're not gonna we're not gonna spend I guess too
Speaker 1: much time explaining what happens. You know, beat I beat.
Speaker 1: But but here are the basics. Quick note by the way, um,
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna end up saying a tradees instead of
Speaker 1: a trades. We're probably gonna if we get into the
Speaker 1: the the hearkenings Harkonan's, we're gonna mix those pronunciations up
Speaker 1: as well. Um, there's of course kind of a back
Speaker 1: and forth I guess about how you're supposed to say
Speaker 1: these things. The main character of Dune is Paula Tradees.
Speaker 1: I've always said a tradees. We. When we didn't add
Speaker 1: for this movie, they were like no, you really need
Speaker 1: to say a tray Eddies, which you said is apparently
Speaker 1: how how Frank Herbert said it at some point, But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've always heard of Tradees, That's how
Speaker 1: I've always said it. Yeah, Herbert said a Treedes and
Speaker 1: he said hearken. And but you know, I'm of the
Speaker 1: mind too that ultimately these books live in our brains
Speaker 1: and sometimes there's a pronunciation there that doesn't match up
Speaker 1: with with reality, and it's just how it goes, all right.
Speaker 1: So in this scene we have Paula Trayedes, the son
Speaker 1: of Duke leto Trades, and he's there with Lady Jessica
Speaker 1: Um a Binny sr Its sister installed in the Tradees
Speaker 1: household Um as part of the breeding program, Jessica was
Speaker 1: supposed to have a daughter who would then go on
Speaker 1: to birth the Quizatts Hoderratch, but then she defied them
Speaker 1: and had a son instead Um. And then that son,
Speaker 1: of course, is Paul. And Paul has dreams and sometimes
Speaker 1: those dreams come true. So the Benejesterate send Reverend Mother
Speaker 1: Guias Helen Mahaam to test him. And Moham is not
Speaker 1: only a high ranking Bena Jessriate. She is the Imperial
Speaker 1: truth Sayer and probably one of the most dangerous humans
Speaker 1: in this entire fictional galaxy. So she's like a mega
Speaker 1: Bennie Jesterrich. She knows all the tricks, all the secret skills.
Speaker 1: You do not want to get on her bad side, right,
Speaker 1: And Charlotte Rampling did a great job, by the way,
Speaker 1: I really hope her performance. Yeah, she's really good. So
Speaker 1: what does she do? She conducts this gom jabbar awareness
Speaker 1: test on Paul. He's told to place his hand into
Speaker 1: a small, curious green box and then she holds this
Speaker 1: like she has this little needle thing called the gone jibar.
Speaker 1: She holds it to his neck. Uh. And here's the situation.
Speaker 1: She lays it out. If you take your hand out
Speaker 1: of this box, I'm gonna jab you in the neck
Speaker 1: with this pointy thing. Um. The gone jibar here is
Speaker 1: essentially a poison needle that will just absolutely kill you dead.
Speaker 1: It contains a meta cyanide I think she says, yes,
Speaker 1: meta cyanide, so you might be prepared for sanide, but
Speaker 1: not meta cyanide um. The box so meta. The box
Speaker 1: is far more subtle, though, So you stick your hand
Speaker 1: in this box, and it will begin to tingle with sensation,
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe you know, just some maybe eventually
Speaker 1: an itching begins. But eventually, and rather quickly, this is
Speaker 1: going to grow into an all consuming feeling of pain.
Speaker 1: And generally speaking, I think people stick their hand in
Speaker 1: the box, they just they imagine that their hand is
Speaker 1: just on fire, just crumbling into ashes, and there eventually,
Speaker 1: right it says, I think specifically that when when the
Speaker 1: pain increases in intensity, Paul believes that his hand is
Speaker 1: being charred away and just turned into a stump. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, Paul, Paul has a lot of questions
Speaker 1: and he's maybe a little bold and asking them at times.
Speaker 1: And during this this session, uh, he asked what's in
Speaker 1: the box? And she's like, it's pain, pains in the box.
Speaker 1: And he's like okay, and but she keeps on going. Um,
Speaker 1: she says, you've heard of animals chewing off a leg
Speaker 1: to escape a trap. There's an animal kind of trick.
Speaker 1: A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain,
Speaker 1: feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove
Speaker 1: a threat to his kind. Okay, So she's making a
Speaker 1: distinction here about ways of responding to a threat, responding
Speaker 1: with just sort of with with panic or with with strategy, right,
Speaker 1: and Mahiam explains that this this is a testacy if
Speaker 1: Paul is a human or an animal, and why when
Speaker 1: Paul asked, why are you testing for humans? He replies
Speaker 1: to set you free? And and then she goes back
Speaker 1: to the whole butt Larry and Johada a bit and says, quote,
Speaker 1: once men turned their thinking over the machines and hopes
Speaker 1: that this would set them free, but that only for
Speaker 1: men and other men with machines to enslave them. The
Speaker 1: Great Revolt took away a crutch. It forced human minds
Speaker 1: to develop. Schools were started to train human talents. And
Speaker 1: from here she goes on to explain that the two
Speaker 1: main schools to emerge from this ancient shift where the
Speaker 1: Guild focusing on mathematics and the Benegesserate focusing on politics.
Speaker 1: Now that word kind of rings strange in the context,
Speaker 1: but I think I think it makes sense if you
Speaker 1: work it out. Yeah, like to to reach this point
Speaker 1: where you're like, oh, they're there there, which is their
Speaker 1: psychic they have they have crazy technology, they they have
Speaker 1: martial arts, they're super into politics. That makes them sound like, oh,
Speaker 1: oh my good god, what topic are they going to
Speaker 1: insist on talking to me about? Um? Right, um it? Politics,
Speaker 1: I think can sound a bit lame as the superpower
Speaker 1: of the benagestrate, but yeah, we have to I think
Speaker 1: we have to realize they're talking about politics here in
Speaker 1: the grander scheming sense, and not a shake hands and
Speaker 1: kiss babies sort of thing, or a um, you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of politics that one sees on television every day. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there are multiple ways in which that could
Speaker 1: be misleading. I mean, one thing I think it's worth
Speaker 1: noting is that when I hear the word politics, I
Speaker 1: automatically tend to assume a kind of basically democratic electoral context,
Speaker 1: where even when the word has negative connotations, those negative
Speaker 1: connotations are against that background. So it might have to
Speaker 1: do with people lying or misrepresenting their priorities, or engaging
Speaker 1: in petty corruption, or putting their private interests above the
Speaker 1: public interests, and so forth, all things that are bad,
Speaker 1: but on a different frequency than the political situation of
Speaker 1: the done universe. Because the political system of the done
Speaker 1: universe is hard to describe succinctly, but I think could
Speaker 1: best be seen as something like techno feudalism or maybe
Speaker 1: sort of interplanetary fascist imperialism with it with a special
Speaker 1: political difference to trade guilds. But whatever it is, it
Speaker 1: is certainly not electoral democracy. It's not a good political situation.
Speaker 1: So that the use of politics and the bien ejeserate since,
Speaker 1: I think, should be understood as expertise in manipulating human
Speaker 1: institutions and seeking power and authority within a ruthless, hierarchical empire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that sums it up pretty well. So this test,
Speaker 1: this Gonjibar awareness test, we learn, is ultimately about giving
Speaker 1: the proctor of this test the chance to see how
Speaker 1: the individual reacts to intense stress, and in doing so
Speaker 1: test them on their use of benajesterriate teachings, which Paul
Speaker 1: had been instructed in by his mother. Mild spoiler, Paul
Speaker 1: passes the test. He does not die like you know,
Speaker 1: five minutes into the film. Good job, Paul. Now, at
Speaker 1: this point I thought we might get into some explanations
Speaker 1: for what's actually going on in this test, or supposed
Speaker 1: to be going on in this test, how we might
Speaker 1: interpret it. Um, you know, I guess in many respects,
Speaker 1: the test is pretty simple. You know, you got a
Speaker 1: needle with a drop of poison on it, You've got
Speaker 1: this box. And Mahaim says that the secret of the
Speaker 1: box is something lots of folks would love to have,
Speaker 1: you know, because clearly there there are plenty of bad
Speaker 1: characters in the universe who would like to cause pain. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's said to work via nerve inducers, creating a sensation
Speaker 1: of intense you know, ultimately burning pain without actually causing
Speaker 1: physical damage. Now, I mentioned the Dune Encyclopedia, and I
Speaker 1: just want to point out that, interestingly, interestingly enough, it
Speaker 1: does not really tap tackle this topic at all. It's
Speaker 1: a book that goes all in on things like how
Speaker 1: the molecular structure of milange might work, or exactly how
Speaker 1: excon no rooms might function. But they pretty much left
Speaker 1: the gone Jibar awareness test alone, which I was I
Speaker 1: was kind of surprised that. I was like, there must
Speaker 1: be a huge entry to this about this that I
Speaker 1: just never read. That's interesting. But of course there was
Speaker 1: an article about the gonjibar that got into some interesting
Speaker 1: stuff in another book we've referenced. This one definitely came
Speaker 1: up in our previous episodes. On the science of Dune,
Speaker 1: and the book is actually called The Science of Dune,
Speaker 1: published in two thousand and eight. It is edited by
Speaker 1: Kevin R. Grazier, and there is a chapter on the
Speaker 1: gom Jibar called The Black Hole of Pain by an
Speaker 1: author named Carol Hart. This is still very much in print,
Speaker 1: by the way, so if you're interested, you can definitely
Speaker 1: grab a copy. Oh yeah, A lot of the essays
Speaker 1: in this book are pretty interesting. Mostly what they do
Speaker 1: is they take one of the concepts explained in Dune
Speaker 1: and they talk about its situation within the Dune universe,
Speaker 1: but then try to relate it to real world science
Speaker 1: or sort of situate its uh, its role in the
Speaker 1: narrative within the context of real world science. And so
Speaker 1: that this essay by Carol Hart is all about the
Speaker 1: gom Jabbar scene and UH and and how it relates
Speaker 1: to some of the neuroscience of pain. So one of
Speaker 1: the things she says at the beginning of this essay
Speaker 1: is that, of course the hand is quote exquisitely sensitive
Speaker 1: to painful and non painful stimuli. And I think we
Speaker 1: all know this from experience. Generally, you know, the hands
Speaker 1: are there's just so much more complexity of tactle feel
Speaker 1: ling going on there, then there is in many other
Speaker 1: parts of the body. I remember when I was a
Speaker 1: kid and you would have to go to the doctor
Speaker 1: and get a finger pricked um in order to give
Speaker 1: a blood sample. I remember I used to think, why
Speaker 1: can't they just like prick you on the back or
Speaker 1: on the leg or something to get the blood sample,
Speaker 1: because it seems like it's on the fingertip it hurts
Speaker 1: almost more than it would just about anywhere else. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe some places I'm like, you know, the
Speaker 1: face or a few other key points in the body
Speaker 1: might might be as distressing, but the fingertip just it
Speaker 1: seemed unnecessarily cruel to me. Yeah, I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. I I try to regularly give blood
Speaker 1: at local blood drives, and um, you know, I I
Speaker 1: don't want to stare at the needle in my arm.
Speaker 1: Uh that's involved in the actual blood draw. But I
Speaker 1: think if I had to choose, like, what is what's
Speaker 1: my least favorite between the needle in my arm and
Speaker 1: that that prick that they do just to test your blood. Initially,
Speaker 1: it's always that that prick because it's just it's just
Speaker 1: like this sudden punching, and there's this you know, the
Speaker 1: sharp since the pain is very fleeting. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: not you know, it's not bad in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: as far as all things go, but it is a
Speaker 1: stark reminder of just how sensitive the fingers are. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think there are multiple things going on here
Speaker 1: with this exquisite sensitivity in the hands. I mean, one
Speaker 1: thing is that the hands have to be very sensitive
Speaker 1: in order to be dexterous. But there's also I believe,
Speaker 1: a conceptual sensitivity in that you you realize that the
Speaker 1: hands in a way are more fragile than than other
Speaker 1: parts of the body. You know that, uh, that you
Speaker 1: you need them to do all kinds of things. So
Speaker 1: an injury to the finger will will limit the things
Speaker 1: you can do more more so than an equivalent, say
Speaker 1: prick or injury on like the thigh or the or
Speaker 1: the back or something would. Yeah. Now, from here in
Speaker 1: Heart's essay, she goes on to talk briefly about the
Speaker 1: ways that pain pathways function within the body. What actually
Speaker 1: happens when a pain sensation is triggered, say by an
Speaker 1: injury to the hand. Uh. And so the first thing
Speaker 1: she says is that most types of injury to the
Speaker 1: hand will result in triggering more or less identical pain
Speaker 1: sensing receptors in the in the nervous system called NO
Speaker 1: susceptors pain sensors uh. And the one exception she cites
Speaker 1: is certain kinds of like deep mechanical pressure or crushing pain.
Speaker 1: But generally, she says, these NO susceptors are going to
Speaker 1: detect injuries without much reference to discriminating it's it's type. So,
Speaker 1: for example, while different receptors in in the tissues of
Speaker 1: the hand will be able to tell the difference between
Speaker 1: a range of warm and cool temperatures, extremes of heat
Speaker 1: or cold that would trigger these pain receptors, they just
Speaker 1: register as undifferentiated pain and use the same neural pathways.
Speaker 1: And so I thought that was kind of interesting. And
Speaker 1: she uses that to tie into some of the ambiguity
Speaker 1: of of what's going on with the box, because of
Speaker 1: course Paul cannot see his hand in the box, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't know what's happening to it. He just knows
Speaker 1: something painful is happening. And so she uses this to
Speaker 1: explain that the intense burning sensation he experiences could be
Speaker 1: other things. It could that could include like extreme cold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always always liked this. Uh, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: model of an exploration of just pain in general, because,
Speaker 1: as we've touched on before, there's always the sensation of pain,
Speaker 1: but then there's the mental world of thinking about the pain,
Speaker 1: worrying about the pain, interpreting the pain. And in this,
Speaker 1: you know, Paul's hand is literally in a in a
Speaker 1: green but you know black box where you can't actually
Speaker 1: see what's going on in there. Well, it's actually both.
Speaker 1: It's green on the outside, but then he says on
Speaker 1: the inside, no light penetrates that. He says, it's like
Speaker 1: a perfectly black interior that you can't see at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But to review, like the sensations that the narrative says
Speaker 1: Paul experiences while his hand is in the box, uh,
Speaker 1: it says, first he feels cold, and then he feels
Speaker 1: slick metal, and this is presumably contact with the inside
Speaker 1: of the box. One thing I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember this, but it's kind of range that the dimensions
Speaker 1: of the box are said to be very small. I
Speaker 1: think it's said to be fifteen centimeters to to a side,
Speaker 1: which means that's like six inches I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's really small to get the hand in there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: after this, it goes on to Paul saying that he
Speaker 1: feels prickling, as if his hand were asleep. And then
Speaker 1: this prickling turns into an itch, and then from an
Speaker 1: itch it turns into burning, and then the burning just
Speaker 1: increases and increases in intensity until it is excruciating. And
Speaker 1: from here Carol Hart compares this to the sequence of
Speaker 1: sensations when pain is usually felt from an injury to
Speaker 1: the hands, such as burning or cutting. And there are
Speaker 1: actually two different processes that go on here. I thought
Speaker 1: this was kind of interesting. So the first one is
Speaker 1: you get a very fast response that travels on what
Speaker 1: she calls fast pain fibers. These are sometimes called type
Speaker 1: three nerve fibers or a delta fibers and uh and
Speaker 1: this response is is very quick, so this would be like,
Speaker 1: you know, a tenth of a second uh and and
Speaker 1: it's also usually not experienced as like a miserable, ongoing experience.
Speaker 1: It is a quick, sharp sensation, usually something that prompts
Speaker 1: you to immediately withdraw your hand from the source of
Speaker 1: the injury. And I think this is one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about pain when compared to other types of
Speaker 1: sensory input, which is that in some cases at least,
Speaker 1: pain is almost synonymous with the behavioral reaction to it.
Speaker 1: So what I mean by that is, uh, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of other types of sensory input, you need
Speaker 1: to process them and then you know, judge your reaction
Speaker 1: based on the situation. But if you if you say,
Speaker 1: touch a hot stove or something, your hand is withdrawn
Speaker 1: before you have even thought about it, and it's like
Speaker 1: after your hand is off it, then you're like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: what just happened? You know, you have to process it backwards,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. I mean I can't really think of
Speaker 1: much other sensory information that works that way. Just just
Speaker 1: prompting absolutely immediate, unthinking response that you can only reflect
Speaker 1: on backwards. Yeah, it is that that that that sharp,
Speaker 1: intense message. I'll say, it's basically saying, finger is in
Speaker 1: contact with something that is burning finger, remove finger from
Speaker 1: said substance their object. You know, uh, immediate reaction. But
Speaker 1: then Heart goes on to explain that there's a secondary
Speaker 1: type of pain actually that that travels via a different
Speaker 1: neural pathway. So this would be what she calls the
Speaker 1: slow pain fibers. These are also known as type four
Speaker 1: or sea fibers, and this refers to the pathway from
Speaker 1: the nerve endings in the tissue actually flowing all the
Speaker 1: way up the spinal cord and connecting to the brain,
Speaker 1: and these fibers, the slow pain fibers, they take longer
Speaker 1: to get running. They need, she says, at least a
Speaker 1: full second to get the message to the brain. And
Speaker 1: then from here these turn into a more bill ding
Speaker 1: persistent sensation. That is the pain we're usually thinking of
Speaker 1: as as the the ongoing experience of pain when we've
Speaker 1: been injured. So this might be a kind of burning
Speaker 1: or aching pain that persists. It will usually grow gradually
Speaker 1: worse over time. It often spreads out from the original
Speaker 1: site of the injury, so you might have a cut
Speaker 1: on the hand, but then you know by the time
Speaker 1: it builds over the course of seconds or minutes that
Speaker 1: you know the whole hand is aching. Is that there's
Speaker 1: this radiating uh quality to it. And then also has
Speaker 1: something to do with the immune system's inflammation response, which
Speaker 1: is the sort of all purpose first responder two cellular
Speaker 1: trauma and the body inflammation is of course also highly
Speaker 1: associated with pain and sensitivity to further stimuli causing even
Speaker 1: greater pain. And so this transition from the initial fast
Speaker 1: pain fibers to the slow pain fibers is what Heart
Speaker 1: refers to as the double pain response. But there's another
Speaker 1: way in which the information we get via the sea
Speaker 1: fiber pathways, the slow pain pathways, how they differ from
Speaker 1: other kinds of sensory input, and uh, and the and
Speaker 1: the point that Heart makes is that, unlike many other
Speaker 1: kinds of sensory input, they really persist with repeated exposure.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've talked on the show before about
Speaker 1: different types of neural desensitization to two inputs that you know,
Speaker 1: if you just repeatedly get the same sense information over
Speaker 1: and over again in an unchanging way, it very often
Speaker 1: fades into the background of consciousness. It somehow becomes invisible. So, uh,
Speaker 1: this can be common with smells in your environment. So
Speaker 1: you know, when you first come around the paper mill,
Speaker 1: you can really smell it, but over the course of
Speaker 1: some amount of time, probably a matter of minutes, you
Speaker 1: just kind of get used to it and then you
Speaker 1: don't really notice that you smell it anymore. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: like cooking smells another example of this. You know, you say,
Speaker 1: cook a bunch of onions. You don't really notice how
Speaker 1: this is affected they sent inside the house until you
Speaker 1: step outside for a little bit and come back exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the same is true of sounds in your environment. So
Speaker 1: environmental sounds, you know, the rain coming down outside or
Speaker 1: the refrigerator humming. If it's just the same static sound
Speaker 1: input for a long time, you will pretty quickly become
Speaker 1: accustomed to it and not notice it anymore unless you,
Speaker 1: you know, stop to look for it or something. And
Speaker 1: of course the same is true with tactle sensations in
Speaker 1: the body, which would be the most analogous to pain sensations. Uh. Pressure,
Speaker 1: as long as it's not painful will will work in
Speaker 1: this case. So the pressure, think about the pressure of
Speaker 1: your clothes against your skin, or your feet against the
Speaker 1: floor or your butt against the chair. It all kind
Speaker 1: of disappears from your consciousness after a few moments unless
Speaker 1: you either stop to think about it or it happens
Speaker 1: to become uncomfortable. So all of these sensory stimuli tend
Speaker 1: to fade away rather quickly. But sea fiber pain has
Speaker 1: a sticky quality and consciousness. It often just keeps hurting
Speaker 1: until something changes, either the painful stimulus is removed or
Speaker 1: the swelling goes down or healing takes place. And in fact,
Speaker 1: not only does it persist, it actually does exactly the
Speaker 1: opposite in many cases. So you repeat the same sensory
Speaker 1: input in terms of most sounds or smells and so forth,
Speaker 1: and you will eventually become desensitized to them until they disappear.
Speaker 1: But Heart notes that pain sensations are subject to this
Speaker 1: opposite phenomenon that sometimes known as pain wind up or
Speaker 1: temporal summation, and this is where the body becomes increasingly
Speaker 1: sensitive to unchanging painful stimulus. The same painful stimulus is
Speaker 1: not getting more intense in terms of what's happening to
Speaker 1: your body. It just the same thing keeps happening, and
Speaker 1: it feels more and more painful upon repetition. And Heart
Speaker 1: actually argues that increasing pain from repeated nerve stimulation sounds
Speaker 1: very similar to what is described in the scene, except
Speaker 1: with the interesting feature that the pain stop completely in
Speaker 1: an instant. When when the reverend mother completes the test,
Speaker 1: she says, okay, Paul is past. It's done, and then
Speaker 1: it says that Paul experienced the pain going away as
Speaker 1: if you know, somebody flipped a switch, and pain in
Speaker 1: the body rarely does this. It rarely goes away that
Speaker 1: fast than now. Part of the whole point of this
Speaker 1: scene in the book is the reverend Mother's claim that essentially,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's all in your head. She she
Speaker 1: mocks the idea of pain, and she says to Paul,
Speaker 1: a human can override any nerve in the body. And
Speaker 1: so she's saying, Oh, you're afraid of pain, that just
Speaker 1: means you're weak. You know that you haven't figured out
Speaker 1: how to how to overcome it like I can. And
Speaker 1: so the question is is it true that you know
Speaker 1: a human can override any nerve in the body, the
Speaker 1: idea that that pain is is all mental. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's entirely true. But the grain of truth
Speaker 1: to it is that the experience of pain is subject
Speaker 1: to more inputs than simply the pure sensory stimulus applied
Speaker 1: to the body, that is, you know, causing the injury
Speaker 1: or causing the pain. In terms of the environmental input,
Speaker 1: you know, the knife cutting the skin, or the the
Speaker 1: you know, the stick poking you, or the hot iron
Speaker 1: against your hand or whatever it is. Uh and and
Speaker 1: some of these inputs are cognitive. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's a good way to approach this to reimagine pain
Speaker 1: not as a sensory input in itself, but actually as
Speaker 1: an experience. UH. And So here's the analogy I would use.
Speaker 1: It's much the same way that vision is not an
Speaker 1: input from the eyes but an experience. The environmental input
Speaker 1: for vision would be light, But if you've listened to
Speaker 1: this show for a while, you probably know that actually
Speaker 1: all kinds of other inputs contribute to our experience of vision,
Speaker 1: such that a person can see things with no input
Speaker 1: of light. So think about the the UH studies we've
Speaker 1: talked about with hallucinations that occur in total darkness. A
Speaker 1: person can have can be blindfolded, or can be down
Speaker 1: in a cave or something where there's no light at all,
Speaker 1: and yet they can experience vision. They can see things,
Speaker 1: and sometimes these things they see are not just you know,
Speaker 1: hallucinations unconnected from reality. Sometimes these hallucinatory visions can include
Speaker 1: real information based on other senses. The classic example I
Speaker 1: think we've talked about on the show is, for example, UH,
Speaker 1: the body using appropriate reception, so it's natural sense that
Speaker 1: allows it to know where its own limbs are to
Speaker 1: feed into the visual system, allowing you to in the
Speaker 1: total absence of light, hallucinate the vision of your own
Speaker 1: hands in front of your face. Or then on the
Speaker 1: other end, you can think about the way that vision
Speaker 1: can receive inputs of light uh in and at least
Speaker 1: part really working visual system and have no conscious experience
Speaker 1: of vision. So think about cases such as blind site
Speaker 1: where a person is blind. In terms of their conscious experience,
Speaker 1: they do not experience vision, but they can still do
Speaker 1: some things that show that the brain is getting visual
Speaker 1: inputs in some way and reacting based on them. The
Speaker 1: person is just not able to see it with the
Speaker 1: conscious part of their brain. And so I think pain
Speaker 1: is not equivalent to this in every respect, but it's
Speaker 1: close in some ways. So you can think about, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, the hot thing on your hand,
Speaker 1: is that's the external stimulus applied to the body. That
Speaker 1: would be the environmental input, kind of like the light
Speaker 1: in vision. But then this input is conducted through pain
Speaker 1: fibers and brought to the brain and is one of
Speaker 1: a number of contributors to the subjective mental experience of pain,
Speaker 1: which itself consists of multiple independent components that can behave
Speaker 1: somewhat independently. So they think about, you know, the different
Speaker 1: parts of pain that you can sometimes even even sense yourself,
Speaker 1: like the the physical sensation of pain versus the emotional
Speaker 1: component of pain, and they usually blend together into a
Speaker 1: unified experience, but there can be you can you have
Speaker 1: sort of moments of clarity where you feel them, uh
Speaker 1: in their own different ways. You get the texture of each,
Speaker 1: if you know what I'm talking about, Rob, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I mean there's this whole to like
Speaker 1: the emotional context of of pain. Like you you slip
Speaker 1: and fall, you you know, you hurt your back in
Speaker 1: in the moment. Yeah, there's certainly they the sensation, but
Speaker 1: then there's all there are these added levels of like, well,
Speaker 1: am I gonna be able to walk after this? Um?
Speaker 1: Is this going to be a pain that sticks with me? Um?
Speaker 1: You know? How long is it gonna take for me
Speaker 1: to get get over this? Um? As well as even
Speaker 1: considerations like does this mean my evening plans are off?
Speaker 1: Is this gonna cost me you know a lot of money?
Speaker 1: Are you embarrassed? Are you embarrassing? Yeah? So there's there's
Speaker 1: so many things going on with you. Even you know,
Speaker 1: I think I guess to fall under your back can
Speaker 1: be quite dramatic. But even two simple things like um,
Speaker 1: you know, papercut, you can you can have some of
Speaker 1: these thoughts like oh my goodness, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: put wear a band aid now if I have a
Speaker 1: band aid on, that's gonna affect my typing. How's that
Speaker 1: going to impact my job performance today? Right? So, addressing
Speaker 1: this question of like, what are the other measurable inputs
Speaker 1: on the subjective total experience of pain in the brain
Speaker 1: heart offers a really interesting example that's been backed up
Speaker 1: by some studies, and uh the example she gives is
Speaker 1: your belief in the significance of the injury that is
Speaker 1: causing the pain. Uh So, she cites behavioral studies showing
Speaker 1: that if you you take people and you subject them
Speaker 1: to the exact same sensory input The example she gives
Speaker 1: is a hand immersed in water that is too hot
Speaker 1: to be comfortable, so not not hot enough to actually
Speaker 1: like burn your skin at least for the time of
Speaker 1: exposure used in the experiment, but more hot than feels
Speaker 1: a you take people their hand in that hot temperature
Speaker 1: of water, and apparently people report less emotional experience of
Speaker 1: pain if the only variable you alter is informing them
Speaker 1: that they will not be injured by the hot water.
Speaker 1: So if you say this will sting, but it's not
Speaker 1: going to burn your skin, it's not going to injure
Speaker 1: your hand, Apparently in that condition, people report less emotional
Speaker 1: experience of pain. So, according to this example, you can
Speaker 1: use verbal cues. You can use information that you recognize
Speaker 1: cognitively to regulate your own pain response. And so, if
Speaker 1: you have more reason to worry that you may be
Speaker 1: injured by this thing that feels uncomfortable, then it actually
Speaker 1: hurts more. If you're assured that you won't be injured,
Speaker 1: it hurts less. And then on top of this, heart
Speaker 1: identifies a couple of other inputs on the subjective experience
Speaker 1: of pain. One I thought was interesting was the idea
Speaker 1: of the locus of control um so. The locus of
Speaker 1: control is a term used in psychology to explain whether
Speaker 1: or not you feel like you are the agent in
Speaker 1: control of a situation. Do you have the ability to
Speaker 1: decide whether this pain stops or not? Uh so? One
Speaker 1: one good example would be, uh say, voluntarily grabbing a
Speaker 1: hot dish out of the oven with only a thin
Speaker 1: towel to protect your hand. That might be briefly painful,
Speaker 1: but then you, you know, put it down. I'm not
Speaker 1: recommending people do that, by the way, but but you know,
Speaker 1: so that that would be a thing that you decided
Speaker 1: to do and you control when it stops, versus having
Speaker 1: somebody say, press your hand against your will against something
Speaker 1: that's equivalently hot. Heart argues that the impression of helplessness
Speaker 1: would actually increase the experience of pain in the second scenario,
Speaker 1: And it is kind of interesting to apply that to
Speaker 1: Paul's situation because on one hand, he can stop the
Speaker 1: pain the second he pulls his own hand out, but
Speaker 1: he's being held you know, hostage essentially here. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like there's a there's an inherent threat that you
Speaker 1: will die if you if you pull that hand out. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, right, He's not being physically prevented from removing
Speaker 1: his hand, but he, I mean, he does have the knowledge,
Speaker 1: he has cognitive awareness that he that the consequences will
Speaker 1: be dire if he does remove his hands, so he
Speaker 1: has to internally self regulate. Uh, yeah, that's weird. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Where you would put the locusts of control
Speaker 1: in that situation. Yeah, I guess that's that's very much
Speaker 1: a ben Adjestent trick, right, obscuring the locusts of control.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the thing. Yeah, right, Is it with
Speaker 1: him or is it with her? It's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to say. There and then another input that hard identifies
Speaker 1: his attention. So she says, if if something urgently demands
Speaker 1: your attention, the brain is usually going to find a
Speaker 1: way to at least partially ignore pain until the important
Speaker 1: business is taken care of. Again, I think we all
Speaker 1: know this from experience, that you can be really injured,
Speaker 1: but you're right in the middle of something incredibly important,
Speaker 1: and then it's once that task is done it suddenly
Speaker 1: how you realize how much it hurts. Yeah, And you
Speaker 1: see plenty of examples of this, like in the sports world,
Speaker 1: where somebody suffers an injury, but then they keep going,
Speaker 1: they press on um and they can in that moment,
Speaker 1: but in some cases they end up doing more damage. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they feel the effects later. Right, And that
Speaker 1: might not even be deliberate like that. Yeah, you might
Speaker 1: not even be aware that you're actually hurt until yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: one more example that Heart site says, a piece of
Speaker 1: evidence for how pain to a large extent is something
Speaker 1: that happens within the brain as opposed to something that
Speaker 1: happens actually at the site of injury is the idea
Speaker 1: of phantom limb pain. So of course this is you know,
Speaker 1: this would be pain that is felt in a missing
Speaker 1: limb after that limb has been lost or amputated. And
Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is that this is pain not
Speaker 1: only in the absence of actual ongoing tissue injury, but
Speaker 1: pain in the absence of actual tissue. Heart rights quote.
Speaker 1: These pains were originally thought to be the result of
Speaker 1: trauma to the severed nerves of the stump, but attempts
Speaker 1: to treat by a second nerve sparing amputation frequently made
Speaker 1: them worse. The more extreme surgery of severing the sensory
Speaker 1: nerves at the spinal cord also proved to be ineffective
Speaker 1: in most cases. So Heart argues that whatever the source
Speaker 1: of pain in the body, the experience of pain, the
Speaker 1: subjective experience, largely happens in the brain. And this is
Speaker 1: why I think in some cases it's it's plausible to
Speaker 1: imagine how the experience of pain could be regulated up
Speaker 1: or down by various types of you know, other mental stimulation,
Speaker 1: apart from just stuff happening to your hand inside the box. Now,
Speaker 1: another big thing she gets into in the in this
Speaker 1: essay is what could actually be happening in the box, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, if the if the box is in a
Speaker 1: sense causing the pain, what are some plausible technologies? And
Speaker 1: I don't think she really lands on anything very solid here,
Speaker 1: I mean, and admittedly she talks about how like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we we we don't really know what could
Speaker 1: cause this kind of pain without any actual injury to tissues.
Speaker 1: She talks about some rumors of Pentagon interest in different
Speaker 1: types of UH technology is known as active denial systems.
Speaker 1: These would be things that supposedly a you know, a
Speaker 1: police force or military would use to disperse crowds by
Speaker 1: inflicting pain without tissue damage on them through supposed mechanisms
Speaker 1: like you know, beams of microwaves or fimtosecond lasers. But
Speaker 1: I think she rightly points out that in reality these
Speaker 1: things would be not only painful, but if you were
Speaker 1: repeatedly subjected to them, they probably would actually cause injury.
Speaker 1: They would cause burns, right, and I and since this this,
Speaker 1: uh this has been published, I mean, I think we've
Speaker 1: seen more and more evidence for that based on uh,
Speaker 1: some of the possible uses of this technology in the world.
Speaker 1: It's weird remembering some of the uh, the press these
Speaker 1: things were getting back in the day. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's so nice that it doesn't cause injury,
Speaker 1: but somebody is even if that were true, what they're
Speaker 1: saying is I created a pain gun. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's a pain gun that leaves no mark. Like
Speaker 1: that's your your best possible scenario based on some of
Speaker 1: those uh those those those early articles and whatnot. But
Speaker 1: one idea that Heart gets into towards the end of
Speaker 1: her essay, which I thought was very interesting, is the
Speaker 1: suggestion that ultimately the pain caused by the the gom
Speaker 1: Jabbar test is not actually from the box, Like what
Speaker 1: if the box doesn't do anything, but the pain is
Speaker 1: from the Reverend Mother herself. And I think the book
Speaker 1: actually gives us reason to suspect this, Like when Paul
Speaker 1: re encounters the Reverend Mother again later in the book,
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm not going to fall for your tricks
Speaker 1: this time, suggesting that Paul believes that it was actually
Speaker 1: her causing the pain in his hand and not and
Speaker 1: not the technology whatever that was inside the box. And
Speaker 1: here the idea would be that you along the lines
Speaker 1: of the other stuff we learn about the Bennie Jesser,
Speaker 1: it's that they have these special powers of hypnosis. They
Speaker 1: specialize again in politics, which ultimately is, you know, the
Speaker 1: science of manipulating people and influencing them. Yeah, I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: to a certain extent. You can see, you can look
Speaker 1: around in the world around you, and it's like politics
Speaker 1: is often about manipulating your perception of pain points. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that they're they're good at this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: even even in the mundane sense. But but so ultimately
Speaker 1: I thought this was kind of interesting because there is
Speaker 1: some real research linking. So, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that says that the Bennie Jesser It's due in
Speaker 1: this regard is they have hypnosis techniques. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: there is actually some research in the real world showing
Speaker 1: that hypnosis, at least for people who are susceptible to hypnosis,
Speaker 1: and not everybody is, but for people who are susceptible,
Speaker 1: hypnosis can in many cases be shown to be effective
Speaker 1: at a pain relief in in both onic and acute conditions.
Speaker 1: If you want to read more about this, there was
Speaker 1: there was a press release summarizing a bunch of existing
Speaker 1: research from the year two thousand four put out by
Speaker 1: the American Psychological Association called Hypnosis for the Relief and
Speaker 1: Control of Pain. Uh. Now, I think there would be.
Speaker 1: I think the effects we're talking about here, uh would
Speaker 1: be much more modest than what is imagined in this
Speaker 1: science fiction scenario, like, you know, making somebody think that
Speaker 1: their hand is literally on fire burning down to a
Speaker 1: piece of ash. Um. I think this would be more
Speaker 1: along the lines of four people who are susceptible to hypnosis.
Speaker 1: It might have some mitigating effect on sensations of pain,
Speaker 1: but not like a totally mitigating effect. And of course
Speaker 1: the evil corollary of that would be that if you
Speaker 1: can deaden people's sensitivity to pain through hypnosis, you could
Speaker 1: probably increase it as well, though that would be much
Speaker 1: less ethical to study, at least in context beyond you know,
Speaker 1: the relatively mild forms of pain people experience, would say,
Speaker 1: a hand pludged into a bucket of ice water. I
Speaker 1: have to say that. Um. I think another a bit
Speaker 1: of evidence that kind of supports the idea that the
Speaker 1: box is not generating the pain is that the box
Speaker 1: doesn't have a proper name. And and Herbert was not
Speaker 1: shy about giving uh, you know, throwing out names and
Speaker 1: terminology in in the book. I mean, there's a whole
Speaker 1: dictionary in the back of the novel, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: letting you know what these various things are. Uh. The
Speaker 1: needle at at Paul's neck has a name, but the
Speaker 1: box is just referred to informally as the as a box. Right,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. I In fact, I'm I totally agree.
Speaker 1: If the box were they were they efficacious agent here,
Speaker 1: the box would have its own name. I feel like
Speaker 1: I know Herbert's brain well enough to know that. All Right, Well,
Speaker 1: at this point, we realize it's time for us to
Speaker 1: take our hands out of the box. Uh, We're we're
Speaker 1: out of time for this episode of stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind. But we're gonna be back in the next
Speaker 1: episode with a continuation of this discussion. We're going to
Speaker 1: keep talking about the benegescriates. Um, We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about getting into back into that idea of politics and
Speaker 1: what that means and if who knows we may discuss
Speaker 1: some other topics in the Dune universe as well. That
Speaker 1: cold open reading, by the way, is of course from
Speaker 1: Frank Herbert's Dune and Annie Reese, co host of Stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You and Savor, was nice enough to
Speaker 1: record that for us, so thanks Annie. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you like to check out other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you can find them in the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed which is found
Speaker 1: anywhere you get your podcast. Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 1: listener Mail on Monday, Artifact on Wednesday, and on Fridays,
Speaker 1: we do Weird how Cinema. That's our time to just
Speaker 1: set aside most of the serious matters and just discuss
Speaker 1: a strange film. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Stuff to Blow Your
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