I'd like to know just how many people have read the Foundation books by Issac Asimov. I know that you've all probably read at least 1 but just how many have read all of them and what about the books written as continuations after the authors death? I'd start a Poll on this subject but need to goto work now ~ talk to ya later...

PS I hope some people still come here, it looks deserted.

I'm from Romania and I've read all that books who are here (around 8 volumes). And also the books writen after the dead of Asimov. Also my son read this books.

About the deserted place. I'm agree but Seldon will say about this when he "will anticipate" that the people will forget the psychohistory.

Now I'm searching deserted places to find someone who could give me the answer to the following question: have someone applied math in psychihistory? And what kind of math?

I hope that my message have not came to late and you could give me a replay

thank you!

I'm from Romania and I've read all that books who are here (around 8 volumes). And also the books writen after the dead of Asimov. Also my son read this books. - Great

About the deserted place. - I was referring to the psychohistory.org homepage not being in much use anymore.

I'm agree but Seldon will say about this when he "will anticipate" that the people will forget the psychohistory. - No one believed him anyway except the people working with him, it would be natural that after the galatic federation fell no one would have time to worry about the higher principles of psychohistory.

Now I'm searching deserted places to find someone who could give me the answer to the following question: have someone applied math in psychihistory? And what kind of math? - I would say that people have applied similar systems to psychohistory's idea. For example predicting atomic reactions, computer programming using fuzzy logic, etc. There are innumerable ways that one might see psychohistory being used. The problem is that no science for manipulating history exists because to my knowledge no one smart enough has been interested or even thought about it. But I still believe it is feasible.

I hope that my message have not came to late and you could give me a replay - It hasn't, I'm able to recieve e-mails whenever someone posts a message in the same area as I have. Provided I began the post.

thank you!

Starting from Asimov's book I'm interested on two mathematical subjects: stochastical model and Giulia sets. To be more exact by stochatic model I mean Hidden Markov Models. I feel that with HMM it can be make prediction on long term.
Also I'm interested in some links about Asimov's life. How he get to ideea of psychohistory?

thank you
cristian

Hi cmpshi,

This reply is an awfully long time after your post - but its nice to see that I have company - though I have to admit I havent had the chance to read all the volumes. I was inspired by a few of the volumes I read - mostly the FOundation novels. They were hard-a-coming when I was in high school but now I can afford them, so Im building up a little collection myself.

Do visit some of the discussion threads in the forums - you may find them interesting. As you may have guessed, there arent very many people who have attempted things on the scale outlined in the fiction - but if ideas are feasible, someone's bound to do it sooner or later.

More from me soon...

--Fulcrum

Nice to see you're alive. I don't know if anyone else on here is or not, lol Checkout my website www.darksidzz.com

I too have read the Foundation Series and found it very enjoyable and engaging. My favorites were Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, and Foundation and Earth. The mentalists of the Second Foundation were among my favorite characters, along with the Mule, and the community of GAIA … Still my absolute favorites were Seldon and the psychohistorians from the beginning of the first book {… and the unlooked for, but still great to see in the end, tying the story together character of R. Daneel Olivaw from Asimov’s Robot Novels }.

As to the mathematics question, Psycho-History must also contend both with the classic philosophical problem of free will as enmeshed in the larger context of directional large-scale human events in time and the dynamics issues that have arisen in all scientific and mathematical discussions of phenomena in our world (be they concerning human activity or natural events in the world). From Quantum Theory to Relativity, any subsequent conversations we have - about psycho-historical understandings of the processes that occur within human experience over time - are going to have to eventually refer back to these terms.

As to one of the possible sources from which Asimov drew his ideas, one that I’ve heard about is in the work of Nicholas Rashevsky. The following book by him may be of use to you. www.worldcatlibraries.org . . ..

Some final points: Foundation certainly offers us the metaphorical core for our study, but there are other novels as well to think about too in our conceptualization of Psycho-History. Chief among such works, I'd say, are Frank Herbert’s Dune Novels (esp. Children of Dune) and Roger Zelanzy’s Donnerjack as well.

While it is true that these works don’t offer us so much content for our enterprise, what they do offer are the conceptual bounds in which to apply real mathematics. What's more: they stretch the way we'd use this math and the way we'd envision the world using it a basic model. By stretching our imagination and giving us a wider view of reality, these models allow us to pull our science and mathematics into areas and in directions where we wouldn't have thought possible. And, so, by such a stretch, the analysis and methods we use are also improved.

Ergo, that's why I find books like these of such use. They may not be in the same category as say Waldrop's Complexity: The New Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, but still as good scienc fiction novels, as good works of fiction, what they do offer us is a metaphorical base to proceed from and a goal to which we might stretch our current mathematical models towards.

Anyway, that's the import I see in Foundation and similar books. Hope my comments are of assistance to you.

-- Brassbabboon

Thanks for the Reshevky book info, I ordered it.

The association of mathematics and Psychohistory is a common one. The association is understandable in that the Asimov described it as such. However if we look at broader view that is covered in the entire Foundation Trilogy, we find a great more to the subject. Mathematics, in and of itself, achieves nothing. It is the application of mathematics in the areas of science, engineering, and business that does something. We live in a mathematical universe and everything, or at least many things, can be described with the tools provided. Asimov covered diverse subjects from industrial economics to mysticism. The Second Foundation touched on the need of leadership, and that is not so easily quantified. Looking beyond the single subject of math, we can see Asimov's vision of Psychohistory, as a discipline that is broad in its coverage as it is extraordinary in its goals.