I went into economics because I read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, in which social scientists save galactic civilization, and that’s what I wanted to be. (Reviewed:) Grade: (A-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Isaac Asimov -REVIEW ESSAY: Foundation’s Dark Future: Asimov judges the present by an imagined future, acting on the belief that scientific procedures guarantee progress. (Titus Techera, 11/19/21, Law & Liberty) Book-related and General Links: -Life & Times : Isaac Asimov (NY Times) -OBIT: Isaac Asimov, Whose Thoughts and Books Traveled the Universe, Is Dead at 72 (MERVYN ROTHSTEIN, April 7, 1992, NY Times) -Isaac Asimov Home Page -Welcome to Jenkins' Spoiler-Laden Guide to Isaac Asimov -Encyclopedia Galactica -Isaac Asimov's Foundations Universe -Literary Research Guide: Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) -ESSAY: FIVE QUINTESSENTIAL EXPEDITIONS; No. 2: Encounters With a Hostile Clerk (Isaac Asimov, NY Times) -ARTICLE: ASIMOV IS CELEBRATING 300TH BOOK'S PUBLICATION (EDWIN McDOWELL, NY Times) -ESSAY: C. S. Lewis and Issac Asimov: A Comparison and Contrast of the Men, Their Minds and Literature (Chris Howard) -ESSAY: Technology; A Celebration of Isaac Asimov (JOHN MARKOFF, NY Times) -ESSAY : The Smart Guy ( Jacob Sullum, Reason) -REVIEW: (Dendry's Review) -REVIEW: of Foundation's Edge (Gerald Jonas, NY Times Book Review) -LINKS: Ultimate science Fiction web guide (ALMOST SIX THOUSAND LINKS TO WEB SCIENCE FICTION RESOURCES) Comments:Every man changes the future every moment either with his action or inaction. "Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."- George Orwell 1984 - Paul - May-26-2007, 19:11 ******************************************************* They believe that they can determine the behavior of others.
- oj - Sep-23-2005, 08:09 ******************************************************* He (Seldon or Mule or other) is not "in control of the future"; however, he and others do try to. This is not determinism, but covert manipulation. If "the free will of others [are being] trumped" in the Foundation series, it is not by an inevitable destiny, but by a calculated effort, whose outcome is far from being certain. One's choosing of anothers behavior can't be equated to determinism; determinism would be independent of anybody's choosing. - juntel - Sep-23-2005, 00:37 ******************************************************* Except that the idea that one man could tweak history into channels of his choosing is likewise determninistic. If he's in control of the future then the free will of others has been trumped. - oj - Mar-30-2005, 22:22 ******************************************************* Juntel hits the key error on Mr. Judd's part in the review. In fact, Seldon himself altered future history by setting up the Foundations, thereby dramatically shortening the coming interregnum. Therefore, from the very start, even with psycho-history, the future is still mutable through the actions of a single person, even one without psychic powers. And of course, as mentioned, the Second Foundation is required precisely because psycho-history isn't completely determinative and Seldon's plan requires some active agent to tweak the currents of society in to the proper channels. - Alan M. Carroll - Mar-30-2005, 22:13 ******************************************************* Well, in SciFi you'll always find authors who will invent (or re-invent) devices from which to tell their tale, how impossible these devices might be. As readers we have to accept these teleporting devices, nano-tech-thingies, positronic gizmos and whatever the author wants us as rules of his/her game, or simply let the book unread. I don't think Azi himself believed much in his 'psycho-history', but it's a good device, and such a non-tech non-hardware device in SciFi isn't usual, and as such it was bold, however (in)credible it might be. But let's remember the 'limits' this psychohistory needed: a population of several thousnads of bilions was a minimum, and all of whom ignored psychohistory itself. Even the peeps on Terminus (the Seldon-founded techno-savvy colony) didn't know how to use psycho-history: only the hidden Second Foundationers did. And one individual, if important and influential enough, could totally alter the predictions of psycho-history, showing the fragility of this science. And one such person did come by: the one that was called the Mule. And this is where the limitedness of psycho-history had to be compensated for by the hidden second foundation. Or, in other words, psycho-history, in the end, can't really predict absolutely; manipulations had to be made, with all the dangers that can come from this. So I don't think Asimov really "dismisses free will and the impact of ideas and individuals on man's development". Maybe psychohistory seems to do that, but the fact that Seldon created the second foundation in the story shows his own doubts, hence the need of men pullings some strings here and there, just to keep the plan in shape. His way of putting something human back in some bleak mathematical model. But in no way do I see psychohistory as something saying individuals' lives were predetermined; and in fact it was totally blind to the individual level: psycho-history's 'history' was not the history of individuals, but of whole society's, or even amalgams of thousands of societies. Like trying to predict a cloud's movement in the sky without trying to look at individual water and air molecules: you can do it for some time, but very imperfectly for long time durations. So the rule of the game in reading the Foundation Trilogy is to accept the premise that someone in the long future (year 10 000 or more) managed to construct such a science combining mathematics and psychology/sociology of those future days. With all the imperfections even such advanced future knowledge will have. A good read, brings out many discussions, no matter how naive some passages/ideas can be at some time. juntel - juntel - Jun-17-2004, 02:49 ******************************************************* "Freud's theories may have been nonsense, but he did popularize the concept of the subconscious, without which the actions of historical figures are incomprehensibly identical" Doesn't the identicality of their behavior put paid to the notion that psychology matters? - oj - Feb-08-2004, 13:26 ******************************************************* Sunday, February 8, 2004, 0955 hrs. pst. Dear Orrin, One never knows when reading pages on sites like this if it is other than internet archeology. But, in the hope that you are both still alive, (Orrin and "the other brother", that is), I commend you on a neat precis of the Foundation Series, as far as it goes. You seem overly creeped out by the psychohistory conceit and reveal your own prejudice against all things psychological. Unless you are actually too young to own the beard with which you are depicted, it must have occurred to you that human behavior is dictated by the subconscious, as revealed through repitition as the hallmark of human history. Freud's theories may have been nonsense, but he did popularize the concept of the subconscious, without which the actions of historical figures are incomprehensibly identical. Cordially, Yogi - Yogi Boubimbondorsky - Feb-08-2004, 12:59 ******************************************************* |
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