

Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Trilogy - shawndumas
http://archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy

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simonh
I agree the Foundation Trilogy is important for any science fiction fan to
understand because its one of the classic works everyone has read. To miss it
is to miss out on that common experience that makes us part of a community.

On the other hand, I found reading it as a child in the 80s a great
disappointment. At the time I was learning about chaos theory and the
butterfly effect. It was painfully obvious to me that the Seldon theory of
psychohistory was impossibly simplistic. Human society and culture is just too
unstable and susceptible to disruption for long term predictions of the kind
the plot relies on to be viable.

Yet despite that, it's still a worthwhile story with valuable lessons. Asimov
realised that random events could disrupt the predictions of any system like
psychohistory. The way I read it now, I don't think Asimov necesserily
believed something like psychohistory was possible, instead he was positing a
classic SF 'what if'. The point is that even if long term predictions like
those of psychohistory were possible, there a still random events such as
mutation that are outside the scope of any deterministic system that can
derail it.

~~~
jjoonathan
Hmm, it's interesting that you found yourself disappointed by Asimov's
treatment of chaos. I can't help but suspect that you may have missed
something when you first read it. I know I certainly did. Actually, Asimov's
treatment of chaos is what sold me on hard scifi. Here are some of the high
points that directly address your concerns:

1) The "thermodynamic" explanation of psychohistory (small, unpredictable
actions "average out" in some sense) was bullshit even inside Asimov's
fictional universe. It was merely an excuse that Seldon used to get the
Foundation placed where he wanted it so that #2 could happen. The fact that
the characters in-universe continued to buy in to the deception could have
confused you (it certainly confused me). In my final analysis I consider this
a stroke a brilliance on Asimov's part, even if it was introduced
retroactively (I don't remember if this was the case).

2) Seldon's plan didn't rely on precise predictions of any kind (broad or
narrow). He simply had to ensure that the set of probable broad predictions
led to the next attractor state (Seldon crisis) so that intervening chaotic
deviations could be neglected for the purposes of computing the subsequent ~50
years. For instance, the metaphorical pebble-in-the-shoe-that-loses-the-war
would be handled by ensuring that both outcomes of the war led to the next
Seldon crisis. In fact, this is the very subject of the 2nd book in the
series.

3) The "random events such as mutation" that you suspect would spoil Seldon's
predictions form the driving force behind the plot of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th
books in the series. While Seldon's solution can hardly be considered elegant,
it was somewhat effective and more believable than a great many things I'd be
willing to suspend disbelief over. It makes for good reading in any case.

Your conclusion that psychohistory was more of a "what if" than a serious
proposal holds true but I still think you haven't given Asimov enough credit
for subtlety in addressing the chaos problem.

~~~
dalke
I'm listening to the series now. One of the oddities which struck me is how
psychohistory could predict the microminiaturization of nuclear power cells.
Nuclear power had been known for about 15,000 years, but only in the last 200
hundred was there a specific need by a resource-poor planet to figure out how
to make those things, and so they did. Yet it was essential that those power
plants exist in order to power the trade goods and the personal shields.

Sure, the Empire thinks in terms of large scale, but there's always a need for
small, energy dense power systems. I can't figure out why they didn't exist
already. And even if they didn't exist already, I don't see how psychohistory
could have predicted that it would exist.

While on the other hand it makes the prediction that nothing will replace the
standard jump technology for interstellar travel. If there were a way to go
from Terminus to Trantor in, say, 1 jump instead of many, or if they could be
done much faster, then the dynamics of the civilizations would also change in
quite unexpected ways. There would be no "edge" of the galaxy, for example,
since every planet would have about the same travel time to the other.

How can psychohistory make that prediction? More importantly, by the end of
the original series, the "Lens had performed a near-revolution in interstellar
travel", making hyperspace travel much faster. How could psychohistory predict
that it would exist, much less when it would arise?

Either one of these - the lack of small nuclear power sources, or earlier
creation of the Lens - would make big changes in the Foundation. And big
enough changes that there's no way it would get to the same sort of semi-
stable attractor as the alternative.

~~~
simonh
I think the answer is that Seldon probably knew that Psychohistory only works
within fairly specific parameters. If something like the Lens were discovered
then the assumptions underlying his predictions would be come invalid,
therefore he simply had to hope that something like the lens would not be
discovered.

As for miniaturised atomics, it's quite possible that the only reasons they
hadn't been discovered already were sociological in nature - regulatory rules
put in place at the behest of incumbent monopolies to protect vested
interests. Seldon may have been able to plot the curve of atomic tech
development up to the point the regulations killed further development, and
then assumed that with the destruction of those vested interests along with
the empire, tech development would continue on it's previous trajectory.

~~~
dalke
This is getting too close to describing how making the Kessel Run in less than
twelve parsecs is meaningful.

The introduction is quite clear that the mathematics is understandable by
other mathematicians. The commentary from the Encyclopedia Galactica (116th
edition, published about 1020 years after Sheldon's death) describes "Seldon
found the field little more than a set of vague axioms; he left it a profound
statistical science." Gaal, by the end of a day of collaboration, was able to
accept that its predictions were valid. It's hard to imagine that Seldon
managed to hide the uncertainties in his work, given that others would be
looking for precisely those uncertainties.

The justification in the series was that need drove development of micro
atomic power units. Terminus is described as a metal-poor planet which needs
to import just about everything. (Which then makes me wonder how there's
enough minerals in the soil to provide the food needed for humans to survive.
Do they even import the zinc needed to prevent zinc deficiency?)

But atomics weren't the only power source. Trantor uses only geothermal power
because it's cheaper than atomics. So it isn't like there's a complete power
monopoly. In addition, the personal shield would be quite the coup. Given "the
known probability of Imperial assassination", there's a strong inventive for
the Emperor and others to push for a personal shield, and a matching power
source.

So you have the strange case where out of the million inhabited planets, only
one retained atomic power and the rest fell into "barbarism." 200 years in the
new era, fully 1/4 of the population was no longer under Imperial control, and
yet all the rest of the people stopped understanding how nuclear power worked.
That speaks to a very rote-based education system. But then how did the people
of Terminus manage to not only remember it but advance on it?

It just doesn't make sense. Of course, in book it's all a fraud. The Second
Foundation, full of psychics, and of course the robots, are working behind the
scenes to keep everything on track. I think that's a cop-out, and I found it
very hard to accept the later books in the series.

And of course in real life it's a SF version of the fall of the Roman Empire,
and as that's the history that we (as Western readers) know best, the
parallels feel comfortable. Had it been based on the Incan or Mongol empires,
there would be a completely different sense of inevitability.

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Steuard
This looks fantastic, but how on earth can it be listed here as public domain?
The original novels are still very much in copyright, so I would think that a
radio adaptation would be, too. (Even if the publisher licensed the rights to
the BBC, it's hard for me to imagine that allowing a public domain recording.)

~~~
jlgreco
The books are still very much copyrighted, but I am not so sure that means
much. The content may be the same but the book and the radio series are still
entirely separate entities in copyright law. That is why you can copyright a
recording of a presentation of Beethoven's 9th.

I assume archive.org has done their homework here, but IANAL.

~~~
batgaijin
wtf?

what would happen if I transcribed it?

~~~
jlgreco
If that were a licensed derivative work, I assume that would be okay.

Also transcribing the radio series would get you the same story, but not the
same book.

~~~
derefr
_Oh_ \--suddenly I understand the economics of "the book of the movie of the
book" books!

~~~
dalke
In addition to economics, I reread "The Wizard of Oz" recently. In the book,
the witch's shoes are silver while in the movie they are ruby red. This was
only one of places where the book and movie diverged. I can understand that
someone who likes the movie may prefer to read the book of the movie, rather
than the original book.

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Rudism
A while back I wrote a quick little perl script to convert archive.org
metadata into RSS feeds that a podcast client can read. So for anyone
interested, here is this feed in podcast format: <http://sitosis-
static.s3.amazonaws.com/foundation.xml>

You can also replace foundation.xml with gunsmoke.xml if you want the OTR feed
that I originally wrote the script for. Source code available here:
<http://sitosis-static.s3.amazonaws.com/archive2rss.zip>

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HorizonXP
Here's the torrent for the lazy: [http://archive.org/download/IsaacAsimov-
TheFoundationTrilogy...](http://archive.org/download/IsaacAsimov-
TheFoundationTrilogy/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy_archive.torrent)

It's very much alive, and fast, but nevertheless, seed if you can.

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Adaptive
Notably, The Foundation Trilogy inspired Paul Krugman to become an economist:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/04/paul-krugman-
asi...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/04/paul-krugman-asimov-
economics)

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
The meme wasn't quoted correctly. The actual version is funnier.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The
Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often
engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an
emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real
world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

------
karamazov
This is great! Reading this series was one of the formative experiences of my
youth.

~~~
fumar
I have reread the series three times. The last time was about a year ago. It
reads like history to me. As if this all really happened. I think that is one
of the aspects that captured my imagination as kid. I could never fully
articulate it. I look forward to listening to this while I work next week.

~~~
bzbarsky
The reason it reads like history is that it was heavily based on actual
history in terms of general political narrative (especially on Gibbon's "The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"). You might want to read
Asimov's "The Foundation of S.F. Success"; a copy is at
[http://www.bowlandcentral.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6886...](http://www.bowlandcentral.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-68867.html)
for the moment. It's quite amusing.

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tathastu
This is a dramatized version of the books. It is not an 'audiobook' version. I
just started listening to it, and it has the Encyclopedia Galactica entries --
but other than that, seems to have no other narrative -- it's just the
dialogue between people.

Still sounds great, though I'm not sure it'll be easy to follow for someone
who hasn't read the book.

------
jlgreco
Oh fantastic, I didn't even know this existed.

Radio serials have been my favorite format of media ever since I listened to
all of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They are like the best parts of
audiobooks combined with the best parts of film or television.

~~~
shriphani
I believe the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy truly shone in the radio format
and that the book did it a disservice.

There was something in the way Simon Jones narrated the series.

~~~
jlgreco
I really liked the books, but I have to agree with you there. Even series 3-5,
which followed the books instead of preceeding them, were superior in radio
format I think. (Particularly the conclusion to the series)

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kossmoboleat
Here's more interesting material:

Jules Verne's "They Mysterious Island"
<http://archive.org/details/mysterious_island_ms_librivox>

Walter M. Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz"
<http://archive.org/details/ACanticleForLiebowitz>

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stox
Upon hearing this, the astute listener will realize just how much George Lucas
lifted from this to build the Star Wars story lines.

~~~
JshWright
As an avid Asimov reader, I'd be curious what specific elements you're talking
about. I'm not as familiar with the Stars Wars universe (I've watched the
original trilogy a few times, and the first two from the new trilogy).

Aside from various themes common to storytelling form time immemorial, I don't
really see what you're talking about.

~~~
throwaway1979
Not sure what the grand parent is referring to. The one instance I can think
of capital city = coruscant.

On a related note, I recently watched the Dam Busters. I was shocked to see
the origins of the death star trench run in an old b&w WWII movie.

~~~
Spooky23
You need the watch the Akira Kurosawa movie "the hidden fortress". Basically,
the parts of the first Star Wars that weren't borrowed from WW2 movies were
lifted from this movie. Many story elements, C3-PO/R2 and parts of the musical
score are very similar.

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realrocker
"The Foundation Trilogy" is analogous to Start-Up Accelerators set up at the
two edges of the Galaxy to bring back the civilization quicker, after the
current order is lost into chaos. One of the best book series I have read.

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aptwebapps
OT, but did anyone else notice that the Grateful Dead have their own category
under Audio? All those bootlegged recordings, I guess.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Technically the "bootleg" terminology still applies, but to be clear all of
the live recordings of Grateful Dead shows are legal as long as no profit is
made on them. They even had special tickets for "tapers" to avoid having an
unwieldly cluster of microphones at shows.

~~~
waterlesscloud
They did literally thousands of shows and over 90% of them were taped! That's
a pretty impressive historical record of a band's performances.

~~~
qohen
The New Yorker had a piece about it all in very great detail -- turns out
there's an official archivist of these Dead recordings and much, much more, if
you're interested in this sort of thing:
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all)

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bmuon
Listening to it really does bring up how there are almost no female characters
in Foundation.

~~~
empthought
I believe Asimov did apologize for this in print on several occasions,
possibly including his autobiography. He attributed it to his utter
awkwardness around women that he suffered from at that time of his life.

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ww520
Is there podcast version of it?

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RaSoJo
...there goes my week :D

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danso
As others have pointed out, Asimov is not in the public domain...but I got the
urge to go purchase his writing...how is it that almost none of his story
collections are available as ebooks? I don't think there are any on Amazon,
aside from collections in which he is one of a few collected authors

~~~
macarthy12
This. Tried to buy the ebooks, can't. I already own the actual hardcopies, so
i did what is fair.

