PT Do you think the Midi-chlorian concept gets more hate than it actually deserves?

it's just like real life there are those that think science and religion can't mix, which is false IMO.
so I don't have a problem with the concept of them.

I am kinda bleh on the whole pokemon-esqe "oh wow!! you got the one with 20,000 midis!" power levels..then I lose interest.
I understand that Qui-Gon needed some sort of 'proof' for his insistence Anakin is the chosen one, I just don't like that was the route chosen.

 

It wasn't really presented as anything. The only information we had to go on is that Ben Kenobi chose to train the son of a Jedi Knight--not anybody else. As I pointed out, there's a very clear mythological, Arthurian element to the story which has to do with bloodlines. The story is about Luke discovering that his true father was a Jedi Knight, and coming to grips with the fact that this is his destiny as well. This is why so many of the conversations pertaining to Luke's father contains references to the ways in which Luke takes after him, such as with his piloting ability, or his propensity for adventure beyond the simple life of a farmer. As Beru tells Owen, "He has too much of his father in him." These are thematic linkages which are deliberately woven into the story and dialogue. Ben doesn't decide to train Luke and entrust him with a mission to save the entire galaxy merely for sentimental reasons. It's because Luke takes after Anakin. Ben sees the potential for Luke to be what Anakin was. And it's because Luke is so similar to Anakin, the way sons and fathers often are.

And, again, your interpretation of the original film relies on ignoring the next two films in the original trilogy, where the hereditary component to the Force and Luke's innate power arising therefrom become increasingly more explicit.

But it also seems as if there are two arguments here. One is that the Force is not genetic in character at all, in any way, shape, or form. The other is that the Force may act as if it were heritable, but doesn't have any literal genetic component. I have to admit I'm not sure which argument is being had at the moment.

 

We weren’t really given that information at all really. Ben Kenobi makes no indication that he has chosen to train Luke exclusively. Luke just tags along with him to Alderaan and doesn’t see him again when they part on the Death Star.

 

Luke isn't just some random bystander. Ben's been hanging out around Luke for years, building a relationship with him. He's been holding his father's lightsaber, intending to give it to him when he came of age. When he receives the message from Princess Leia, he very much wants Luke specifically to come along with him and learn the ways of the Force. He didn't just pick out Luke because Luke happened to be standing in the room with him at the time. Luke is clearly his guy.

And, again, your interpretation requires you to ignore the other two movies in the original trilogy. It only works if you're a 1977 purist, and it's my understanding that you aren't, so I personally don't understand what the point of this exercise is supposed to be.

 

I can understand why it probably appealed to kids in that way. Can't say I ever remember thinking that myself. If I did I have no memory of it at all but I do remember playing Superman in that era. Apparently I thought I could be an alien from another world but since I knew that my father wasn't a Jedi I couldn't not be one.

I'd say the inkling is distinctly there though kids could very well miss it because the allusion would not be known to them.

I wouldn't think I'd have even known about that for years yet. The only thing around would be the Disney movie. We all dream of pulling out the sword but only the son could do it.

That is how it's presented in the movie though Obi-Wan does sense a disturbance in the Force when they land on Tatooine as Qui-Gon does.

 

Exactly, but the thing is that we're all the son (or the daughter, or whatever). When you're an adolescent (the target age for Star Wars) you tend to think your parents are just these lame stiffs who won't ever let you do anything, just like Luke's Uncle Owen. The fantasy is that you're actually adopted and your real parents are cool wizards or superheroes or secret agents or something. That's what Luke finds out about his father in Episode IV. But then the next step is becoming an adult and having that fantasy shattered, and realizing that your parents are human after all, with very human flaws. The fantasy fades away and they once again become these villainous authority figures who are holding you back from doing what you want to do and being who you want to be--just like Darth Vader, who Luke finds out is actually his father in Episode V. The next and final step is reconciling all these conflicting images of your parents into a unified whole and accepting that they're complicated individuals with a lot of different aspects to their personalities, just like you are--and this is of course what Luke does in Episode VI.

Heredity is a central component of Star Wars and always has been, whether midi-chlorians or genetics were explicitly involved or not. The whole story is about finding out where you came from and realizing what that means about who you are and who you're going to be. It turns out we're all our parents in some way. But that doesn't mean we have to make the exact same choices they did. I mean just look at George Lucas's life. His father wanted him to be a businessman, but he didn't want to be, so he left home to rebel and become a filmmaker. And he became a very successful filmmaker. He proved that he didn't have to be what his father wanted him to be. But then what happened? Well, in order to support his filmmaking career, he became a businessman just like his father! It all came full circle. He became his own person, but in the end he also became his father, and there was nothing wrong with any of it. It was all part of the equation of life. And this is an experience I think most people eventually end up having on some level.

 

Yeah I believe the midi count is just the first step for identifying potential Jedi. There's so many beings in the galaxy and so few Jedi (in comparison) that it's impossible for the Jedi to personally interact with every toddler to see if they should be trained. So the midi test is just a preliminary screening test, followed by interviews.

 

What midi-chlorians teach us is that the smallest, simplest organisms in existence are actually the gods who determine our destiny. It's not about judging people by their bodies. It's not really people's bodies that determine how strong in the Force they are. It's how connected they are to these tiny micro-organisms, which aren't actually us, but rather live in communion with us and make life possible. Size is misleading because what really matters is what's going on in the microscopic realm with these humble beings living in our cells. What Lucas is saying is that things actually get more important at smaller scales. The Force is created and sustained by symbiotic connections, and this applies most importantly at scales that are so small that we can't even see them with the naked eye, because that's where it all starts.

This ties in perfectly with what Yoda is actually saying. What you seem to be arguing is that Yoda is saying that nothing actually means anything and it's just, like, you know, whatever man. But I'm not sure how that has any applicability to the real world. I'm not sure what anyone is actually supposed to take from it. Everyone isn't created equally in every respect. The point is that you can't always judge based on simple appearances. Many people would have looked at Stephen Hawking and never even suspected that he was a genius. They would have arrived at an improper conclusion based on his physical appearance and physical capabilities. But that doesn't mean you couldn't scan his brain and see differences between him and a normal person. What people are doing is taking Yoda's words in TESB and essentially adopting a fundamentalist viewpoint that's at odds with both basic logic and the actual reality of living in the world. There's no wisdom in that because it will only lead you astray in life. In its extreme literal form, it's a philosophy that's completely disconnected from any sense of reality, even in a metaphoric sense, and so I'm not sure what value it's supposed to have or why people cling so fiercely to it.

 

I think it's the "crude matter" part that is the barrier. They seem to take that to mean that the physical isn't important but it clearly is so what some take it to mean and what is actually meant by it are two different things.

Apparently it's works from Carlos Castaneda with the idea that people are luminous beings of energy within a physical form.

http://www.theforce.net/rouser/essays/castaneda08.asp

"This enigmatic piece of dialogue is a strong indicator of the Castaneda/Star Wars link. In fact, in Castaneda's "Tales Of Power", we find a chapter entitled the Secret of the Luminous Beings.

In "The Empire Strikes Back" the above line of dialogue demonstrates that Yoda understands the body to be merely an illusory husk - and not where the individual's power resides. If we look at the luminous beings part specifically though (as originally found in Castaneda), the phrase takes on much more meaning - and gives great weight to Darth Vader's assertion that "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force".

A reference to this is found in Castaneda's "The Fire From Within" (page 66) - " ... seers make these statements because they see living creatures as they really are: luminous beings that look like bubbles of whitish light". I'll expand on this in a moment, but there's an important point to bring up first - when a seer uses the word see, it is not in the way you or I would. As Don Juan explains to Castaneda "When seers see, something explains everything ... it's a voice that tells them in their ear what's what". This is akin, I believe, to Qui-Gon Jinn's explanation of the midichlorians to Anakin Skywalker, that, "They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force".

What we do learn from Don Juan is the true state of the life form - the luminous being - a cocoon-like bubble of tentacles/filaments. Seeing this luminous being allows an adept sorcerer to know a great deal about an individual. In fact, it is this method by which Don Juan recognises the necessity of taking Castaneda under his wing upon their first, fateful meeting. He sees in Castaneda that he has the possibility of becoming a man of knowledge, and from that he has no choice but to become his teacher*. Don Juan describes this in "A Separate Reality" (page 112) -

"Sorcerers act towards people in accordance to the way they see their tentacles. Weak persons have very short, almost invisible fibres; strong persons have bright long ones. You can tell from the fibres if a person is healthy, or if he is sick, or if he is mean, or if he is kind, or treacherous. You can also tell from the fibres if a person can see."

*A Star Wars comparison here would be found in Qui-Gon recognising Anakin's Force potential and being compelled to bring him into the fold.

 

Except I would argue that while what Yoda says in TESB and Castaneda says in this passage are both correct, the way many people have interpreted these statements is inaccurate. Many people seem to take these things to mean that the material world does not exist and is irrelevant, full stop. But if you look into similar concepts as articulated by traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism you'll see that the notion of the spiritual world being real and the material world being unreal is far more nuanced. The material world is real, in a sense (after all, we right here sitting and talking to each other, are we not?), but it is not the full reality. It is an illusion, because the physical world is only a part or a distortion of a much larger whole, but we mistakenly take it to be all that there is. We are in fact luminous beings, but our current state is such that we seem to be manifested in a material world, with all its attendant limitations.

This is of course what Yoda means. He does not mean that the material world of crude matter is totally irrelevant or meaningless. That's the overly literal interpretation. What he means is that this is not all there is. We are larger than what we appear to be, though we cannot yet fully perceive this largeness. But of course he and Luke are both still constrained by certain limitations that come from living within this world. Why else does Yoda have to eat? Why must he furrow his little green brow and concentrate in order to lift an X-wing? Why else would it be that certain physical bodies (like those belonging to Skywalkers) possess a stronger connection to the Force than other physical bodies? Why must a Jedi shed his physical body before becoming one with the Force? Why does the war between the Rebels and the Empire even matter at all, if it's all just irrelevant physical bodies colliding with other irrelevant physical bodies? Why care about this world? Why live in it?

These are all questions that must be asked and pondered in order to understand the true meaning of what Yoda is saying. Of course, as long as we are confined to these "crude" material bodies--as Yoda and Luke very much are--we must accept certain limitations. Neither Yoda nor Luke is all-powerful--for either of them to think that they could be is the height of arrogance. But if all they are is simply the Force itself, then why would this be arrogance? The answer is because they aren't, not yet. They are luminous energy manifested through the distortion that is the material world. As long as they abide in this distortion, they are limited. These limitations can be transcended in part through determination and faith in the larger world that is unseen, but they cannot, by definition, be completely transcended until this world itself is transcended.

One of these limitations has to do with the way the Force is dealt with. Yoda and Luke are physical bodies in a physical world interfacing with the luminous energy which exists in a luminous world. They are distortions drawing upon the power of ultimate reality. This power is necessarily distorted as it passes from the luminous world into the material world. It must be, because this non-material power manifests itself materially here, influencing and affecting material objects in material ways. In other words, it manifests itself at least partially in the same misleading, illusory way the material world itself does. When it's being used to lift a rock, it isn't really lifting a rock, but that's certainly what it appears to be doing.

Part of this distortion of the Force within the material world involves the mechanism of interface. Despite all bodies being equally non-material at their core, some physical bodies are nonetheless more capable of interfacing with the Force than others. This is a reality of the material world but not of the non-material world, where all energy becomes one, without separation or distinction. But given the reality of separation and distinction in the material world, it is only to be expected that these kinds of differences would exist.

Based on his statements in interviews, Lucas clearly conceptualizes midi-chlorians as a catch-all metaphor for any mode of being in the material world. We all have different modes of being, different talents, different tendencies, different proficiencies. If we were to take Yoda's words literally, though, none of these differences could exist--yet they obviously do. People even have varying levels of tendency towards spirituality. There's even some evidence that a "God gene" may exist which predisposes some more towards religious experiences than others. Joseph Campbell himself often lamented, despite his passion for the subject, his seeming inability to have a truly rapturous religious experience, an inability he attributed to something innate in his makeup. These are all realities that must be accounted for in any philosophy of the world. If these realities are not accounted for, then again, I ask what possible value could that philosophy have? It just wouldn't be true. And not just in a superficial literal sense, with which I'm not at all concerned. It wouldn't be true in the most fundamental sense. The sense where it can have any useful meaning for your life.

 

That's correct. And that lesson remains true.

No, you can't. The whole point of midi-chlorians is about life forms and mutual benefit through collaboration, all the way down to the cellular level, to the unit of life itself.

Midi-chlorians benefit the living being and the living being benefits the midi-chlorians. Midi-chlorians allows the living being to connect with the Force, to listen to its will, and the living being "prospers" with that connection and benefits the life forms that depend on it (the midi-chlorians and everything else). And this applies to all life forms, because midi-chlorians exist in all of them.

Anyone's midi-chlorian count, high or low, is pointless without the will to let go, to listen, the will to trust in oneself and something other (larger) than yourself. To have faith, basically. It's established in TPM that Anakin has a higher midi-chlorian count than Yoda. Do you judge him to be on par with or better than Yoda? For well you should not, as Yoda would say. Because he isn't, despite his high concentration. Anakin's potential is pointless without developing his connection, just like Luke hadn't in TESB. And to develop that connection, he needs to listen to what Yoda was saying.

In other words, you can have the body of a basketball player, but that doesn't automatically make you one. And even with that body, you definitely won't be a basketball player if you don't have the belief that you can be one, if you don't put your mind to it, if you start making up excuses and be deceived by your own perceptions. That's what was happening with Luke, and that's what Yoda was lecturing him on.

 

Midi-chlorians are basically analogous to Meridians in Buddist Medicine. They are conduits from which the individual channels the life-force known as Chi. With Midis, the more you have per cell, the better your perception and reception to the Force, or at least that's how it was before the ST.

 

Um... maybe I'm just shallow, but to me all that quote meant was Force power >>> muscle power, and that you can harvest Force energy from your surroundings.

 

That's a very good point. Both are conduits. The only difference is that midi-chlorians are living beings in and on themselves and concentration of them varies. But the concept of channels/conduits to Qi (the Force) is the same. That may have been one of the unspoken inspirations for them.

 

The Force in the OT is a bit pantheistic , I agree. To me the PT made it more overtly Christian.
Anakin is now a prophesied "Chosen One" a "Savior" meant to end a great evil. He was apparently created by "God" so he is the Son of God in essence. And he comes from a desert home.
Yes I know that Gods having children isn't unique to Christianity nor are prophecies.
But I still think the PT has more overt Christian elements than the OT had.

But what I took from Yoda was not to judge things by their size or a Book by it's cover.
Thin, fat, short, tall, having one leg, sitting in a wheel chair, those things did not tell the full story about how strong that person was when it comes to the Force or even in general.

Luke had ideas that Yoda was a great warrior, big and strong. He was not.
To judge Yoda by his size is missing a lot.
His small body does not tell the full story.

Also, Yoda was clear that Luke had to train his mind, that the use of the Force is a mental discipline most of all. So something like a rock, that has no mind, that can't use the Fore. Even something alive, like a bug, that has a mind but not one advanced enough to use the Force.
Which ties into what Lucas said back in the day, that some alien races were better at using the Force than humans because their minds were different.
Which makes sense, a more advanced mind is better at a mostly mental discipline.

Not sure that Qui-Gon sensed the Force in Anakin. Anakin told him that he could race pods, something no human can do. To which Qui-Gon comments that he must have Jedi reflexes to do that.
So Qui-Gon is told that Anakin can do something beyond what humans can do, and at such a young age at that. So that is likely what made him suspect that he was strong in the Force.

Except that Anakin was a very unusual case in that he was so much older than normal.
It isn't stated outright but the implication is that Jedi to be are taken in at a very young age, a few months old to maybe one year. And it is kind of hard to test or judge the feelings of an infant.
So here the midi tets is the only thing that matters. High enough, Jedi pupil, not high enough, no Jedi.

And why he was rejected was that he missed his mother and fear to loose her. Very normal feelings for a kid his age. This implies that Jedi to be are taken in before they can form any bond or attachment to their parents, which again suggest a very young age.
So it seems that the Jedi want children that have not formed any attachments when they are taken in.

Disagree, Vader does not sense the Force in Luke until Luke starts to use it.
Same with Leia, Vader sensed nothing about the Force in her. He commented that she was strong willed enough to resist the mind probe for a while. But again nothing about any Force connection.

Luke had been given a lesson, rather short, in how to tap into the Force. He used that and with Obi-wan helping him, he started to use the Force in the trench. Only then did Vader sense him, not before.
So he used the Force and Vader noted that.

@The_Phantom_Calamari

Hang on, hasn't the argument been that the midis are NOT the Force but just the connection?
Here you say the opposite, that the midis IS the Force, the Gods.
And if they are and if Anakin was conceived by them then doesn't that make him the Son of God?

Except it is, the number of midis is apparently important and logically a big body can have house more midis than a small one. And if you say that it is only the conc/cell that matter then why can all the midis in one cell work together but not all the midis in one body?
And if we go with loss of limbs= loss of midis= loss of Force potential then it totally is about the body.
"Loss of an arm, hmm a 20% loss of midis so your Force potential is now 80% of what it used to be."

And what determines the number of midis is apparently the genes, which are part of the body.
If Anakin had an identical twin brother, he would have the same midi count as Anakin because his genes/DNA is the same.

I have no idea how you reached that conclusion and you seem to be making a straw-man here.
The real world exists but that is not the only thing that matters.
My take away is simple, don't judge too things too quickly, which Luke did do quite a bit in ESB.
And in ANH when he was told to fight without being able to see. And when he did, he took his first steps into a larger world.

And don't judge things based on size, Yoda is small but that says nothing about how strong he is in the Force.
Luke also didn't think he could lift the X-Wing, again because of size.
His mind limited him and Yoda was teaching to open it up.
And don't be so quick to put labels on things, things are usually more complicated than a simple label.

But a midi count is a label, potential Jedi or not.
And Anakin was said to have the potential to become more powerful than either Yoda or Sidious.
And that was due to his body having more midis than they did.
Not about who Anakin was as a person, just his high midi-count.

To quote Gattaca, "There is no gene for the human spirit."
A person's genes don't tell you all there is no know about that person.
People can overcome considerable limitations and achieve great things.
If they put their mind to it, if they believe, if they strive.
Within reason, a person can't survive in deep space without a suit no matter how much they think they can.

To tie it back to what Yoda said, you don't see his spirit when you see his body, this crude matter.

@Alexrd

The Jedi can as they use a midi count to determine who is a potential Jedi or not.
Above a certain number, might become a Jedi. Below that number, no Jedi.

And Palpatine did as he thought that Vader could become more powerful than him or Yoda just due to his midi count.

But Anakin's high midi count has in essence given him superpowers in TPM. He can race pods, which humans can't do. His reflexes are faster than ordinary humans.
So his midi count is affecting him even without any training or something like that.
And if we were to compare Yoda at age nine and Anakin at age nine, then I think it likely that Anakin had faster reflexes.

And I have seen people argue that Anakin's skill as a mechanic and building things is also due to his high midi count. That is why he can do things most nine year old's can't.

Bye.
Old Stoneface

 

Who else wants to see a nine year old Yoda? (puts hand up)

 

Where do they do that? Qui-Gon recognized Anakin's strength in the Force before any midi-chlorian count was made. The midi-chlorian count was done after Qui-Gon learned about certain facts that could allow him to connect the dots regarding the prophecy (no father, unusually strong in the Force).

Besides, that's not a judgement. Just a recognition of potential/talent.

Source? When did Sidious say anything about a midi-count? In any case, same as above: recognition of potential. All of them could sense that the Force was strong with him. But the Force being strong in someone in and on itself is almost meaningless if the person doesn't believe or put his mind to it.

The Force being strong in him is what gives him sharp reflexes, which in turn allows him to race pods. He still needs training to develop his skills other than the symbolic manifestation of sharp reflexes and short foresight, a hint of his potential.

Irrelevant to your argument. 9-year old Anakin had an higher count than Yoda. You can't pass a judgement on that, and if you do, you shouldn't.

I disagree. I do think everyone's natural talents in the Star Wars universe is tied to the Force, since everyone is connected to it and using it (wether they know/are aware of it or not). Being a mechanic and building things is something that requires specific knowledge that needs to be learned. But the sensorial perception that allows one to be good at those things (and others), could very well be a manifestation of the Force (example: Han's piloting or Padmé's discernment).

But you don't get a course on how to be a pilot, mechanic, Jedi, senator, whatever from the Force (or from the biological link to it: the midi-chlorians).

 

It's astonishing how many people forget that the Jedi Council looked at Anakin's crazy midi-chlorian count and said, "No, thanks."

The Jedi Council was far from preoccupied with midi-chlorians. They didn't care. They were way more concerned about a potential initiate's emotional readiness. A fairly high midi-chlorian count is a prerequisite but not a guarantee that one will make a good Jedi. Of course you need the talent, but you also need the temperament.

 

That's correct. I wouldn't even call it a prerequisite, although it stands to reason that someone strong witht he Force has an above average midi-chlorian count. The Jedi are able to sense the Force in people. Qui-Gon sensed it. The Council sensed it too. They don't need a midi test for that. The only reason why the midi-chlorian test was made, and why Qui-Gon spoke of it to the Council, is because it tied to the prophecy which refers to someone conceived by midi-chlorians. Qui-Gon sensed the Force was unusually strong with him. Then he learned that there was no father involved in his conception. An off-the-charts reading would be the clue he needed to reach the conclusion that he was the prophesied Chosen One.

Other than that, it wasn't really relevant. The Council recognized that the Force was strong with him too. But that was far from the only relevant factor for someone to be considered for Jedi training. Something reinforced (or already established) in TESB.

 

Right. They were probably amazed at how strong he potentially could get, but it was his emotions that troubled them.

Which to be fair, is kind of unfair on their part to expect a nine-year-old just out of slavery who had to leave his mom behind on said slave hellhole to be all passive and non-chalant about the whole thing. ‘Mom? What mom?’

@Bob Effette — “A...whatever species, I am, and Yoda my name is!”; “Spinning, a good trick this will be!”; “A plan, I have. Act senile, will I, Master. Mmm, yes, good plan.”

@Samuel Vimes — The only time Palpatine mentioned midichlorians was when he was doing his Darth Plagieus the Wise spiel. “...So powerful and so wise, he was able to use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life.”

 

Ben does imply that he wanted to teach Luke. He says "learn about the Force", and since there is no other Jedi around it was clear to me that he would do the teaching. Only after his death did the role of Jedi master go to Yoda. I don't think Ben would have sent Luke to Dagobah during the time of ANH.

 

They didn't expect anything one way or the other. They explained what was going on and why he wasn't going to be trained.

 

Quite, but it is all merely implication to be honest.