The Human Non-Human Boundary in 'Dune'
 – An Ontological Reading through a Comparative Nietzschean and Transhuman Framework

Written By Kiti Misha

Abstract

In Frank Herbert’s Dune Saga, we find a transhumanist and Nietzschean argument about the evolution of humans achieved as a result of the triggering effect of the Butlerian Jihad against thinking machines. I claim that the metamorphoses of the selected characters reflect the central tenants of the transformation of Nietzsche’s overhuman, or transhumanism’s posthuman. By extending these metamorphoses to include the standpoint of a fictional counterpart such as Dune’s Kwisatz Haderach, this study claims that in Science Fiction we find a possible ground for conceptualizing difficult problems that deal with the future of humanity. This investigation into the need to overcome the human condition will be held in order to see what drives human enhancement, what triggers the need for change, and how this enhancement is realised. Moreover, I claim that the Dune Saga dramatizes a future scenario that furthers the discussion on what is human by questioning the boundary between human and nonhuman.

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1483861&dswid=398

Kiti Misha
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