Greetings,

It's my first time here on PsychoHistory.org and I'd like to begin by stating I do believe that Harry Seldon was correct in his theories concerning this science. It is also a personal belief that Hyperdimensional Physics will lead to a better understanding of the universe as a whole rather than as individual parts. Through the use of this multidimensional mathmatics it is logical that one day history will be predictable in a definable way and as long as the people are unaware of it, possibly altered. It should be noted that history can always be altered but not on a massive scale, to do this one must have a grasp better than that of the average human. Not only a grasp of society but one of science and history, hence my belief any well educated man may one day comprehend Psycho History!

Thank you

Is a little bit strange that everybody talk about the psychohistory but not about the mentalist. And one of idea of Asimov is that the human must "forget" psychohistory or at least "forget" the mentalist dimension of this science to make applicable this science. so I'm not agree with the ideea that "any well educated man may one day comprehend Psycho History!"
P.S. What you really understand by multidimensional mathematics?

Is a little bit strange that everybody talk about the pschohistory but not about the mentalist. - I assume you are referring to the ability shown later in Second Foundation of manipulating mens minds using telepathy. That was the tool they used to insure Seldon's plan unfurled the way it should. He knew that because the universe had random interactions that his science couldn't entirely account for that a group had to be established in order to meet those circumstances and evolve his equation with them. Hence the hidden, mostly secret telepaths.

And one of idea of Asimov is that the human must "forget" psychohistory or at least "forget" the mentalist dimension of this science to make applicable this science. so I'm not agree with the ideea that "any well educated man may one day comprehend Psycho History!" - I would say that I am not totally certain about this statment. Telepathy to me is another form of science. Nikola Tesla said that nothing paranormal exists simply things the limits of science cannot as yet measure. But as science evolves eventually the understanding of these phenomena will too.

P.S. What you really understand by multidimensional mathematics? - Hyperdimensions. This term means, as an example. You have a flat sheet of paper. You can draw on it anything you like but it maintains it's 2-dimensional properties. Next you can have a 3-dimensional object and so on. The human brain is limited in that is percieves only 4-dimensional interactions. Length, width, height, space-time. Anything else would manifest as nonsense because our brains simply cannot process higher interactions into logical data. In fact much isn't logical. THe shortest distance using this idea is not a straight line, instead it is 0. 0 meaning that space can be folded so that no distance between the 2 points exists, thus you are entering the realms of hyperdimensional physics.

It is appealing to take study of the extraordinary subject presented by Physics. I think most learned people marvel at the approach of Physics in uncovering the nature of the universe. And however appealing it is to understand and use this understanding, we must be cautious. We must first understand the problem to be solved and then, if applicable, choose the math models to use. In developing Psychohistory, it is a problem of a different sort. For example, we need to understand the characteristics of individual human beings-a subject of the natural sciences. Then how human beings work in varying social organizations-a subject of the social sciences. It is a perplexing problem.

Is it really necessary to understand the universe as a hyperdimensional whole before we can predict human reactions to stimuli as mass populations? We don't need to know that you can connect any two points in the universe by a zero-length line, effectively making the two points coincide (they cannot coincide, but they can be infinitely close, which is the definition of zero)

Different planets can be represented by their characteristic effects upon the populations in question, and as a restrictive influence to travel. They would have dramatic effects upon the people living upon them, especially socially and economically. Each planet would have a fairly insular nature, barring the development of farcaster gates like in Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels. Anyway, these can be represented mathematically to define the agent populations being analyzed. We don't need to know hyperdimensional physics. Asimov simply threw that out there to suggest that there is some pretty fancy and erratic stuff getting thrown together into the psychohistory cocktail, and physics was hot at the time, so lots of people would understand what he was talking about, even if it was only basic recognition.

Hi all! This is my first post, I´m new. Sorry for my English, it´s not my native language, so I apologise if sound rude or extremely formal sometimes.

Well, I would separate "multidimensional maths" from psychohistory. First of all, perhaps I don´t understand in what way the adjective "multidimensional" is being applied to maths. In my opinion, there´s not advantage in making a classification such as "multidimensional" and "monodimensional" math (if the term exists...), since the latter would be a specific case of the first (again, if I´m interpreting correctly the use of this adjective). I´m not saying that maths have nothing to do with psychohistory; in fact one of the most attractive points of it is that it´s supported by maths. I just say that psychohistory wouldn´t arise from a deep pure math knowledge and understanding, because for me psychohistory is a kind of applied math.

I think the big task to do if we want to achieve a formal psychohistory some day, is building a formal model of "mass behaviour". By formal model I mean just a syntactical system, which may be a correct interpretation of infinite "real world" entities, being one of this entities the mass behaviour.

Once we have a model, it would be desirable to prove it´s correctness with respect to the entity it´s trying to describe. A formal proof seems to me in this case quite unreachable, but a first empirical attempt could be "testing" it with past History.

Then, we have a theory, a specialized algebra, some axioms we state to be true to speak about the society behaviour through time, and we test it empirically. I can´t help associating this method with that of physics, chemistry, etc. scientists.

Well, let me tell you it´s great to be part of this community, the topics are so interesting, I really enjoy it!