Plato's Cave

Fifty years of writing by Poul Anderson were celebrated by Going For Infinity, a new collection of stories published during that period with additional autobiographical passages. Fifty years of writing by Isaac Asimov were celebrated by Foundation's Friends (London, 1991), an anthology of new stories inspired by Asimov's works. Thus, all the stories in Going For Infinity and one in Foundation's Friends are by Poul Anderson.

The "Foundation's Friends" that are new contributions to Asimov's future history cover three periods:

US Robots (2 stories);
Elijah Bailey (1);
Empire and Foundations (3).

Anderson's "Plato's Cave" is one of the US Robots items.

In Platonic philosophy, particulars, eg, particular men or round objects, are imperfect copies of a universal Idea, i. e., in these cases, Man and Circularity, just as a shadow is an imperfect copy of a solid object:

"'...we are like prisoners chained in a cave who cannot see the outside, yust the shadows of t'ings that are cast on the wall. From this they must try to guess what the reality is.'" (p. 268)

- explains one of Anderson's characters, Captain Borup, in his Danish accent. Borup says that the metaphorical shadows are unreliable images only because the senses are often wrong, not because the Ideas are, in Plato's view, beyond the sensory realm. But, in any case, Borup cites Plato's cave only to make a comparison with the robotic conundrum encountered by Powell and Donovan.

A robot is bound to obey a human being but can be hoodwinked into thinking that the entity communicating with him by laser beam is just another robot especially if he has been led to suspect that the transmitted image has been tampered with. In this sense, the hoodwinked robot, Jack, is in Plato's cave. Powell and Donovan must appear to be committing pointless suicide only to be stopped by a peremptory order from Borup in order to convince the robot that has been impersonating a man (in order to fool Jack) that Borup at least is probably human and must be obeyed. Anderson gets into the spirit of Asimov's robot puzzle stories.

As often in Anderson's puzzle stories, there is a moment when one of the characters has suddenly realized the answer but does not tell us what it is yet:

"He broke off. Donovan had smacked fist into palm. Powell drew a whistling breath." (p. 272)

- and thereafter the problem is solved.

Other Series

Recently for this blog, I:

reread Poul Anderson's contributions to the Medea and berserker series;

discovered that Anderson's For Love And Glory was based on his two contributions to the "Isaac's Universe" series;

was surprised to learn that his Cappen Varra stories crossover with Thieves' World.

Now I notice that his contribution to Isaac Asimov's Robots series is called "Plato's Cave" (Martin H Greenberg, Editor, Foundation's Friends, London, 1991) and therefore should be of interest to a Philosophy graduate. I will shortly reread it, having previously read it just once on purchasing Foundation's Friend when that was newly published.

As far as I remember, this story was a fully consistent addition to the series, featuring the United States Robots and Mechanical Men trouble shooters, Donovan and Powell, while referring to the robopsychologist, Susan Calvin, and the politician, Stephen Byerley.

I, Robot is perhaps Asimov's best work, beginning with experimental robots and culminating in a Stapledonian apotheosis when giant robotic Brains control the global ecology and economy for the human good. They apply what later came to be called the Zeroth (pre-First) Law of Robotics, preventing harm not to individual human beings but to humanity. Asimov surpassed himself in the sequel, "That Thou Art Mindful of Him," when the Brains, having judged that self-determination is the greatest human good, have phased themselves out but there is now a threat from another robot model called the Georges.

Foundation's Friends comprises:

one contribution each to the Black Widowers, Wendell Urth and thiotimoline series;

one sequel each to "Nightfall" and "The Dead Past";

two stories about Asimov, in the future and in an alternative present;

four non-future history Robot stories;

six contributions, totaling 241 pages, to Asimov's Robots and Empire future history, including "Plato's Cave."

I think that this future history was later diluted by too many new Hari Seldon novels by other authors but the idea of expanding Asimov's future history was new when Foundation's Friends was originally published in 1989.