Anderson did deploy the Asimovian idea of a predictive science of society in his earlier Psychotechnic History but again Anderson's account is more plausible. In Asimov's future history, psychohistorical predictions are derailed by a single individual mutant whereas, in the Psychotechnic History, the psychotechnicians are overwhelmed by chaotic events. Millennia later, after two periods of Dark Ages, a Galactic civilization has at last achieved the aims of psychotechnics.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but Anderson became increasingly SKEPTICAL of predictive "sciences" of society, and basically abandoned such notions. Because human events and histories were too chaotic and zigzaggy to be predictable. At most the study and analysis of history shows broad patterns that seems to have a tendency to recur.
And I still mumble and grumble about the story you alluded to in the last sentence! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
I think I have mentioned "Psychohistorical Crisis" by Donald Kingsbury.
I consider it the sequel to the first 3 Foundation books that Asimov *should* have written.
Kingsbury set this story in Asimov's Galaxy with the serial numbers filed off. It is in the 2nd Empire run by the psychohistorians & those psychohistorians encounter a problem for their rule inherent in the very idea of psychohistory.
BTW Kingsbury does a nice job of adding detail to an interstellar society the way Anderson does.
Consider that you can't even outguess the stock market, much less history as a whole. It's simply too chaotic.
World War One started because a man took a wrong turn in a car and then stalled trying to back up.
Literally.
Also, physics deals with inanimate objects whereas a science of society would deal with us, its living subjects. More than an observer effect. Observer-observed identity.
Kaor, Jim and Mr. Stirling!
Jim: I am still skeptical about any kind of psychohistory, but Donald Kingsbury's book might be worth looking up.
Mr. Stirling: I am stunned by that, everything we see and have now stemmed from that hapless chauffeur making a wrong turn! What kind of world might there have been with no Sarajevo???
Ad astra! Sean
And Archduke Francis Ferdinand's car stalled directly in front of Gavrilo Princip!
Sean
A friend of mine is thinking of a short story in which ten or a dozen different sets of time-travelers with conflicting agendas are clandestinely fighting each other all over Sarajevo on that day in 1914.
Hence the strings of ridiculous coincidences... 8-).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Your own story, "A Slip in Time," touches on such things! Including rival time travelers.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment