It was even more surprising if you realize that "Butlerian" is referring to the 19th century writer Samuel Butler (although, yes, Herbert later invented a chara

It was even more surprising if you realize that "Butlerian" is referring to the 19th century writer Samuel Butler (although, yes, Herbert later invented a character to explain the name in-universe). Samuel Butler wrote an 1863 essay "Darwin Among the Machines" which predicted that machines would improve in a way analogous to natural selection and would so so faster than humans could evolve, and therefore they might eventually surpass humanity.