Dune got it right and Paul Atreides received the ultimate education…

Dune is a book about education. Sure, it’s also a space opera novel about drugs, genetics, and oil politics. But what defines the characters are their education, and Paul’s education makes him the ultimate mentat-warrior-diplomat-godhead. In this article, I deconstruct his education and propose an education program that will prepare learners for the (inevitable) near sci-fi future.

Paul Adreides is …badass. He does mental computations faster than a computer. He is politically adroit. He’s a knife fighter, a sandworm rider, a warrior tribe leader, an alchemist able to control individual muscles in his hands. So, how was he educated?

The ultimate education involves instruction in cutting-edge technology (‘technology augmented intelligence’) but also development of raw cognition in an unaided format — martial arts, meditation, languages, mental math.

The ultimate education system includes:

High-tech and zero-tech environments.

Rich assessment — Test in ways which strategically aids learning, like real-world tests.

Multidimensional learning spaces — Learners develop cognition in physical contexts.

Apprenticeship relationships — Model excellence + a personal emotional relationship.

Use of World 3 Objects — Learners need to understand their skills, capabilities, and beliefs are cognitive assets.

This type of education is described in the science fiction classic, Dune. In Dune, Paul, the scion of the noble House Atreides, is instructed in modern technology — like binary coding and advanced weaponry, as well as in unaided cognition — like body and mind control down to a nerve and chemical level.

If we break Paul Adreides’ education down further, it has five the critical components:

1. High-tech and zero-tech: Paul could use a shield, or not. Paul could operate complex weaponry and aircraft, or change his oxygen needs when trapped under sand.
2. Rich assessment — Gurney’s no-holds-barred knife fighting practice helped him be calm in his first to-the-death knife fight. Hawat’s intellectual tutelage builds the facility for Paul to be a Mentat — a human capable of advanced cognition. His mother tests him on using voice-control techniques, which ends up saving his life.
3. Holistic and multidimensional learning spaces - accounting for how learners develop cognition in physical contexts. Leto took him to the spice fields, in his strategy meeting — making him experience learning in real-world contexts that extended to all the physical spaces Leto operated.
4. Apprenticeship — Paul had some of the best people in the galaxy teaching him their specialty, who also loved him and had a vested interest in his success.
5. Use of World 3 Objects — Paul Atreides possesses a World 3 object which is the ‘Litany Against Fear’ — a mantra and relaxation technique he uses to suspend cognition and overcome almost any level of physical pain.

An educational program that incorporates these five components is the best solution for developing human cognition to a new level of excellence in the modern age.

**WTF is a ‘World 3 Object? Here’s a definition: “Popper’s world 3 contains the products of thought. This includes abstract objects such as scientific theories, stories, myths and works of art.[3] A world 3 object is something along the lines of a meta-object or a form of being.”

We can use this map to craft the ultimate modern education program

Below is more detail…

Different approaches: augmentation vs. fundamental mental processing

The ideal education not only develops curiosity and metacognition in a learner, but also allows the learner to flourish in both high-technology and non-technology environments.

1. Learners leverage emerging AI/ML-enabled tools for intelligence augmentation and develop fundamental cognitive processing and physical mastery.

Views are mixed on whether or not kids can or should be taught without any technology. On one hand, private schools cram learners with facts and stimulants to ace tests — this is the ‘augmented’ approach. On the other, low-tech schools like Montessori and Waldorf forego math or programming to focus on developing creativity and spatial memory — ‘fundamental’ approach.

Both produce results, and should be combined, but never overlap.

Teach cognitive development based on reasoning and developing strong inquisitiveness that is unaided by machines. Then, in separate sessions, maybe on separate days, harness emerging technology and thus create real ‘augmented human intelligence’(2). The idea is that this mix of aided and unaided instruction allows the learners to thrive within the distributed cognitive environment of modern society and in the wild. It also cuts out that middle of the bellcurve quasi-augmented learning which is really bypassing cognition and automating, not augmenting.

Not just Growth Mindset, but a Fluid Mindset: In the Scientist in the Crib Gopnik explored how child cognition is shaped by three core things: foundations (symbolic systems translate new data into coherent representations), learning, and social contexts. Education should support each of these aspects of cognition.

The process of ‘theory of mind’ generation and regeneration happens fluidly for children, and hardens into set beliefs in adults. We need an education system, and technology as an agent in this system, to support fluid thinking and regeneration of beliefs. We already have names for this: Learning how to learn, changing your mind, and so on. But modern education is still modeled on a factory, and teaching to standardized tests do not create great thinkers.

We see this neurological pattern most in child minds, and in the minds of scientists. We need education that develops a fluid testing and reframing cognitive process in learners over time.

2. Teachers and teaching machines must make allowances for the cultural expectations society has of the learner, scaffolding and aiding them in real-world contexts.

Apprenticeships with Human and Robot Tutors

Cognitive apprenticeship is a method of teaching school subjects that embodies many of the practices of apprenticeship training, such as modeling, coaching, and careful observation of the learner’s practice (4). Learners thrive with such apprenticeship, and while we are nearing AI embodiment in robotic form that can deliver cognitive apprenticeship in a pure ‘content’ form, we still lack the chemical and social stimuli in robots to truly accomplish what a human tutor or ‘master’ may (5). Therefore a well-designed teaching system would include not only access to digital tutors with deep subject expertise (ready access being needed, and humans being hard to scale, not to mention pay for), as well as a small group of human teaching masters that the learner may apprentice with.

(We see this exact idea in Dune, where Paul Atreides apprentices with Jessica Atreides, Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho, Thufir Hawat, and the infamous Dr Yueh. They in turn aid him with semi-intelligent teaching technologies to interact with, including his own version of the Orange Catholic Bible, and detailed maps and histories of subjects he displays interest in).

Learning Spaces

Research makes a strong argument for strategically designing classrooms and learning environments (2). As we move into an age of telecommuting, virtual reality, and virtual beings, we can’t ignore how ambiance changes thinking. Learners won’t have the same physical or digital identity as previous generations. Instead, they will likely exist between worlds, with personalities, identities, and data tied to discrete physical, terrestrial, digital, and mental locations.

Given what we know about situated cognition, the new learning technology designer must therefore weave the notional ‘golden threads’ between each lesson, location, teacher, and connect these all temporally into strong cognitive ‘eternal golden braids’ — lessons which persist over time and transfer between contexts (7).

We will one day soon each have our own ‘mental palace’ expressed in multiple interfaces — a mental/cognitive and digital/visual place where we store our memories, which we can access via augmented reality and eventually, neural interface.

Strategic use of World 3 Objects

Popper (1978) famously explored the realities of the ‘3 Worlds’. Defining World 3 products of the human mind, and World 1 as physical objects. Many designers and educators may forget to include consideration for each of these discrete worlds in their learning program design (6).

The ideal learning program would take a minimalist approach (meaning do as little as possible to achieve the following aims) to developing a strategic set of World 3 assets for learners, and measuring and supporting the World 2 processes that facilitate the interaction between World 3 objects and World 1 ‘realities’.

Confusing? …So an example from Dune (why yes, it exists) is how Paul Atreides possesses a World 3 object which is the ‘Litany Against Fear’ — a mantra and relaxation technique he uses to suspend cognition and overcome any level of physical pain. He is able to overcome the test of humanness, administered via the threat of the deadly Gom Jabbar, because he possesses a World 3 object that allows him to overcome his World 1 objects; his nerves which physically a part of his body. Without an education that included consideration for the 3 Worlds, Paul would have died.

While this example is dramatized, the core lesson on teaching should not be overlooked. Teaching learners to understand their World 3 assets, to use them consciously to effect World 1, will be a critical function of human intelligence in the next millennium.

Factoring in Cultural Superintelligence

Many researchers discuss how children are in fact cultural inventions (8). As Pea (1985) described this, “children are, or become, what they are taken to be by others, and what they come to take themselves to be, in the course of their social communication and interactions with others.”

Designers of education programs need a fast, flexible and bidirectional listening tool with the culture their learners are being shaped by. Increasingly there may be data and analytics feeds for this, however at least in the near term we will need to overcome some inertia to designing for fast-changing cultural norms.

The awareness and design has to go both ways — the child is an invention of culture, and so too is the tool for the child’s mind and learning. Tools don’t exist alone in a box (no joke intended). Learning tools exist with a myriad of other media inputs. If we want the tool to be used, gamifying and placement within existing social and personal activities is the missing link for transforming cognition.

Descartes / Knowledge / why this whole product has to exist, not just part of it.

In the 1930s Descartes made popular the notion that there could be some certainty regarding the foundations of human knowledge. This idea is provenly irrational(9). Knowledge is not uniform or certain for everyone, but is instead internalized and localized in each specific consciousness.

Because of this, we can’t actually optimize without nuance. We can’t blindly optimize assessments, push robot tutors on kids, or even discuss what intelligence is, without both a grasp of the universal and social constructs of knowledge, and an honest review of current uncertainty of it all.

People are working away at the edges of this problem of education. But once someone can FINALLY build this whole system I lay out, then education fundamentally shifts. In this case, the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts, it’s staggering.

The point is — we need to do away with average. Cut out the cognition that feels easy, and explore the extremes. The modern learner does not need to be a renaissance man — they needs to be able to knife fight in the favelas and win against OpenAI at Dota.

References:

1. Herbert, F. (1965). Dune. Chilton Books
2. Pea, R. D. (1993). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions (pp. 47–87). New York: Cambridge University Press.
3. Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Kuhl, P. K. (1999). Chapter 5: What Scientists Have Learned About Children’s Minds. In The scientist in the crib: Minds, brains, and how children learn (133–173). William Morrow & Company
4. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational researcher, 18(1), 32–42. [Online (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.]
5. Wiltshire, T.J. & Fiore, M. S. (2014). Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience in Human–Machine Systems: A Roadmap for Improving Training, Human–Robot Interaction, and Team Performance.
6. Popper, K. R. (1978). Three worlds. The Tanner Lecture on Human Values. The University of Michigan. Ann Arbor.
7. Hofstadter (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books
8. Pea, R. D. (1985). Beyond amplification: Using the computer to reorganize mental functioning. Educational psychologist, 20(4), 167–182
9. Toulmin, S. (1999). Knowledge as Shared Procedures. Perspectives on Activity Theory. Cambridge University Press. pp. 53–64 (1999)