To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well. I'll improvise.
— Isaac Asimov, "Foundation" pg. 241
Isaac Asimov is one of the most well known science fiction authors of all time. The period in which he wrote became known as the golden age of science fiction, due to the quality and progressiveness of his novels, along with some other renowned authors—John W. Campbell, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert A. Heinlein to name a few.
It was during this golden age that Asimov produced his most well known work, the Foundation series. Originally published in the 50's as a trilogy, the series was later expanded, some 30 years later, with four more novels; bringing the total to seven books over the course of four decades.
Asimov also had a PhD in biochemistry, and he was a professor at Boston University (he eventually stopped teaching to pursue writing full time). Evidently, his academic background convinced everyone that his books should be classified as a more legit version of science-fiction called hard science-fiction. How is it different than regular sci-fi? As far as I can tell, it's when the science and technology you invent is believable enough, your work gets to be classified as hard science-fiction. Precisely who gets to decide which sub-genre your science fiction belongs in, I'm not sure.
I just finished Asimov's first hard sci-fi novel, Foundation. It was recommended to me by my friend Sam, so right away I knew it was probably going to be shit...but alas, even a broken clock makes good book recommendations twice a day.¹
I quite enjoyed Foundation, despite not experiencing the same sort of emotional engagement I get with other sci-fi and fantasy. This is mainly because the book is structured as a number of unconnected (or loosely connected) stories, taking place in chronological order but involving mostly different characters and different places. You'rr not able to invest much into the characters when their development was limited to 30-50 pages or so.
I've never read a sci-fi novel with a plot structure like Foundation. The scale of time over which the story takes place and the multiple jumps in time to different eras makes it harder to grasp any sort of plot continuity or momentum. But it works because it's about a cause not limited or pursued by one individual, but a generations of individuals—the establishment of a galaxy-wide empire! It's a unique concept and it raises different sorts of questions and ideas than a typical hero-centric sci-fi novel would.
To Be Determined
Reading Foundation made me think about the concept of determinism a lot. Determinism is the notion that our actions and decisions are not of our own volition; instead they are predetermined and our future is already set in stone, it just hasn't happened yet. The rationale behind this line of thinking could be based in either science or religion (or in a bowl of alphagetti for that matter), but the psychological consequences are the same.
From a religious perspective, Christian theology to be specific, the evidence for determinism is indirect—God never explictly said he already decided everything for everyone. But, you can still find some pretty suggestive passages from the good ol' Holy Textbook:
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
— Jeremih 29:11
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
--- Proverbs 16:9
Now, these are obviously quite subjective, and you could make a case that even if The Big Guy has set out a plan for you, you are not destined to follow it.
However, if we take into account that God is said to be omnipresent and omniscient, i.e He exists at all points in time and is not temporally bound, then it's hard to logically reconcile this idea with the notion that we still have free will and the autonomy to change our futures. I haven't decided what I'm going to have for dinner yet, but God, in principle, should be able to tell me using his omniscient superpowers.
There's also an argument to be made for determinism from a scientific basis. It's based on the assumption that our brains are constrained by the same causal relationship that all physical matter is grounded in. All our decisions are the effect of a set of preceding causes, and thus can be predetermined.
The entire argument boils down to these assumptions:
- Our brains, and by extension our minds, are governed solely by the laws of physics and our decisions are the result of an insanely complex interaction of chemical, electrical, and physical forces.
- The entire universe and all things within it are bound by the laws of physics.
- The universe started from an initial point in time with a specifically defined set of conditions (big bang)
- The laws of physics are objective, deterministic, and can be mathematically described
∴ The entire state of the universe can be calculated at any point in time, given a sufficiently powerful calculator.
Basically, the same way we can calculate the trajectory of a flying projectile, given its initial position and velocity, we could also calculate what I'm going to decide to have for dinner tonight if we knew: the laws of physics perfectly (which is possible according to assumption 4) and the complete initial conditions during the big bang (assumption 3).
Granted, the discovery of quantum mechanics and it's probabilistic nature has taken the wind out of determinism's sails—but my point is that the theory of determinism is an old concept, and one not completely without merit. It has some interesting philosophical consequences, and Asimov touched on some of these ideas with Foundation. The story is thematically rooted in determinism, in a way.
The basis for a deterministic universe in Foundation is the existence of a branch of science called psychohistory. Psychohistory is basically social statistics on steroids. By examining the state of society and various "forces" in motion, psychohistorians are able to mathematically make predictions about the future with extraordinary accuracy.
Psychohistory isn't able to make accurate predictions about an individual's actions, as the science is statistically based and deals with masses of humans. It follows the law of large numbers, so the bigger the population under analysis (like an entire galaxy), the more accurate the results will be.
Psychohistory was the quintessence of sociology; it was the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations. [..] The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reaction of human mobs, Seldon found, could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the greater the accuracy that could be achieved.
— Asimov, Second Foundation
In the story, Dr. Hari Seldon is the greatest and most important contributor to the science of psychohistory. He plays a central role in the novel's plot.
So how is this the same as absolute determinism? It's not, technically, but I think it has similar psychological repercussions on the characters who understand and know of it. That's what I found intriguing in the story—the actions of characters who are fully aware of the future course of events. They act in accordance with this knowledge to support the realization of these predictions, and I wonder if that is born out of a sense of obligation, or because they believe it's inevitable, or possibly because it fulfills them with a sense of purpose?
To provide some context, at the start of Foundation we're introduced to Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian working at the University of Trantor, on the planet of Trantor, which is the capital of the galactic empire. Seldon is unshakably sure in his prediction that the empire will collapse within 300 years, and his attempts to prepare for this situation are seen as treason in the eye's of the empire. Because he publicly shares these predictions, the Empire arrests him.
As the result of a somewhat but not really fair trial, Seldon and his associates, who number in the tens of thousands, are sent to a planet to work on their preparations (of course Seldon actually manipulated those in charge of sentencing into reaching this desired decision). This planet, named Terminus, happens to be at the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and their "preparations" are, by Seldon's insistence, the development of an encyclopedia with the entirety of the galaxy's collective knowledge within it, and definitely not the organization of an anti-imperial army to overtake the galaxy.
The story then jumps to 50 years later, on the planet Terminus. Seldon has died, but before he did he established a way of communicating messages to his followers at predetermined intervals in the future, in order to relay additional guidance and information. This is when the "encyclopedists" hear Seldon's first postmortem message; we find out that his plan all along was to organize an anti-imperial army to overtake the galaxy! (*gasp*)
Seldon also reveals he already predicted all the decisions they've made in the last 50 years:
To that end we have placed you on such a planet and at such a time that in fifty years you were manoeuvred to the point where you no longer have freedom of action. From now on, and into the centuries, the path you must take is inevitable. You will be faced with a series of crises, as you are now faced with the first, and in each case your freedom of action will become similarly circumscribed so that you will be forced along one, and only one, path.
— Asimov, pg. 115
So after all that time, we find out the encyclopedia was merely a ploy, and all the men involved with its development over the past 50 years had the pleasure of hearing that first-hand from Seldon's holographic voice.
I can't imagine what they must have said when they went home and their wives asked them how their day was. 50 years. 50 years of your life dedicated to something, and then a hologram of a dead old man appears and tells you he was just kidding.
A Cognizant Cog In The Machine
Foundation encompasses such a huge timescale and scope that it's easy to not pay attention to these small details, or the absence of them. It's interesting how Hari Seldon is portrayed in a god-like way in the story. His word is law, because he can "see" into the future, despite being dead for most of it.
This brings us back to my main point about determinism—the characters in the story know about Seldon and their role in his grand plan to bring about a new galactic empire. They're also aware of its approximate completion date, 1000 years away, which means they will be long dead before the plan is fully realized. So I wonder about the motivations that drive these generations and generations of individuals to continue working in the name of Seldon, despite all of them playing such a cosmically insignificant role in its progression.
Now the main counter-argument to this is that if you look at the actions and decisions of the "main" characters in the story, it'd seem that their actions did have significant repercussions on the fate of Seldon's predictions. However, these actions are, by definition, trivial because psychohistory predicts outcomes for large masses, and due to its statistical nature the outcomes can't depend upon the actions of any one individual.
This means every plot development was inevitable and there were larger forces working to bring the events to fruition. Just because Salvor Hardin happened to be the one to overtake the scientists in charge of Terminus and lead the Foundation into its first militarized era, and just because Limmar Ponyets happened to be the trader that brought nucleic technology to planet Askone, this doesn't mean that their actions were pivotal and essential to the progression of the Foundation's fate which Seldon planned.
The only way Seldon's predictions could be so accurate is if these events, or ones with similar consequences, were likely to happen anyways. If you line 1000 people up the same distance from a red button and tell them whoever presses it first will get $5, it doesn't matter who touches it first, but you can be quite certain before they start running that the button will be pushed.
If all these characters are intelligent and rational actors with knowledge of psychohistory and its nature, they could come to the same conclusion I just described and realize that their efforts in the name of Hari Seldon's plan are not actually necessary to its success. They could cease to exist completely and the new empire would continue to progress and grow. With this in mind, why do they still devote their lives to the advancement of Seldon's grand cosmic predictions? Maybe it's because, as I alluded to with the red button analogy, there's personal gain to be found in being the one who pushes the red button, or leads the Foundation into a militarized era, or brings nucleic technology to the outer reaches of the galaxy.
It's hard to say whether the knowledge of these grand plans, or rather predictions I should call them, really have much effect on the motivations and decisions of all the individuals involved in them. According to Seldon, one of the basic tenets of psychohistory is the assumption that the populations being analyzed are not aware of the results of such analysis, otherwise it may alter the predictions,
the human conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in order that its reactions be truly random.
— Asimov, pg. 79
In Foundation, it's never made clear how much the general public of Terminus knows about the course they're on. It seems that only a select few high-ranking members of the Foundation are privy to the details of Seldon's predictions. My guess is that the small number of informed persons will not have a detrimental effect on the probability that the predictions are accurate. This raises an interesting point that actually contradicts my previous reasoning where I concluded, due to the statistical nature of psychohistory, that no individual could have a significant effect on the likelihood of a psychohistoric prediction being realized. If you had knowledge of psychohistoric predictions, you would be in a far better position to affect it than an uninformed individual would. This would support the notion that the actions of the characters we meet in the story have significance and a non-trivial effect on the course of events.
Regardless of the philosophical implications on the psyche's of the characters, the strange science of psychohistory was a really unique concept to base a sci-fi novel on. I can see why it's such a recognized and lauded series.
I enjoyed Foundation because it introduced me to an extremely rich and detailed world that Asimov invented. The story, although structured differently than a typical science-fiction novel, was engafing and I'm curious to find out what happens in the next novels.
¹just kidding Sam :)