Dune technology viable?

[Exarch]

I'm sure everybody here is familiar with Frank Herbert's Dune series.
Just how viable is something like say

1) Axlotl tanks,and subsequent face-dancers?
2) genetic memory, and collective immortality?
3) shields? (i should probably start a new thread on this one)
4) mentat training?
5) the way the bene gesserit can mentally control each and every aspect of their body.

<drool>

[Simetrical]

Mentat training and the more extravagant Bene Gesserit powers (such as mind control through simply talking to someone) are probably not psychologically possible to the extent depicted in the novels, at least as far as modern-day humans go. There's no reason to think that humans are capable of such feats or, on the other hand, susceptible to such vulnerabilities. If people were capable of things like Mentat capabilities, you'd expect that they'd have to be bred extensively (I can't recall if that's mentioned as being the case in the Dune books).

Genetic memory is exceptionally implausible. It's easy to see that a human's DNA contains only about 1.5 GB of data: 3 billion base pairs per set of chromosomes times two sets of chromosomes times two bits per base pair divided by eight bits per byte. That immediately seems insufficient to hold much memory. The human brain's information capacity is estimated as being upwards of terabytes. So it probably wouldn't be possible to do this even deliberately, let alone it naturally happening. This analysis ignores epigenetic information storage, but that doesn't provide a whole lot of extra space that we know of, so it remains very implausible.

Shields are somewhat physically implausible, but much more implausible militarily. As I have remarked before, it would be pretty easy to design a missile that would slow itself down to almost no speed at all just before hitting its target, thereby avoiding the shield, and defeating their narrative purpose. (Their function, obviously, is to allow a way to allow sword-fights in the distant future instead of guns and lasers.)

As far as shields go, it's also interesting to note that although reference is made in one book to the shield affecting gases, the percentage of gas particles traveling slowly enough to evade such a shield would probably not be enough to avert suffocation. The average gas particle travels at hundreds of meters per second (a standard undergraduate physics exercise) and so would certainly have to be excluded if any gas particles are. It wouldn't be a problem if it keyed off momentum instead of speed, which would be much more reasonable, but the books don't seem to imply that.

As for the axlotl tank, there's no reason to think that we won't have much more powerful devices than that. The concept of something that can duplicate someone from a full-body scan or whatnot is not so problematic. The implementation is the odd part, as some kind of biological device that was actually bred from humans (as is hinted at). To duplicate a human brain with memories intact, you would need incredibly fine control over the arrangement of Avogadro's numbers of molecules, which is just not a facility that any biological device has or looks to possibly have. It's the kind of thing machines excel at, very precise manipulations.

[Gaidin]

As far as shields go, it's also interesting to note that although reference is made in one book to the shield affecting gases, the percentage of gas particles traveling slowly enough to evade such a shield would probably not be enough to avert suffocation. The average gas particle travels at hundreds of meters per second (a standard undergraduate physics exercise) and so would certainly have to be excluded if any gas particles are. It wouldn't be a problem if it keyed off momentum instead of speed, which would be much more reasonable, but the books don't seem to imply that.

That's the curious thing, is momentum is based off of speed. Herbert wasn't exactly renowned for his knowledge of physics, and while there are canonical sources linking passage through the shields directly with speed, there are also canonical passages saying enough gas gets through to breath, even if through stale air. Momentum is about the only way to justify the paradox.