There's a big difference between "important" and "great". I'm not denying that the Foundation series could arguably be the most important science fiction ever written. But when it is set up as the greatest series of all time? That's disappointing (read: lazy). The truth is, the Foundation series really isn't very good. Interesting at points, yes. Groundbreaking to the genre, I guess. Unique, yes. But it's a literary mess filled with mathematical, social, cultural, political, and historical nonsense. It's a sequence of didactic dialogue whose only plot device is a deus ex machina. Er, Seldon ex machina. No, Gaia ex machina. Um, Daneel ex machina? Seriously, that's it. That's all it has. This isn't a Star Wars situation where we're all kind of in on the joke. People take Foundation seriously. People fawn over this series (just Google "greatest science fiction of all time"). I get that we read science fiction to escape and dream, but you have to turn your brain completely off for this reading experience to work. If it had stopped as a series of related short stories written by a 20something Asimov, it would have still been important, and I would be much more positive about it. But, much like Dune, it became caught up in itself and outstayed its reasonability. For the sake of space, I'm just going to stick with the 5 primary books of the Foundation-era universe: Foundation through Foundation and Earth. I won't complain in the slightest about the retconning (certainly in his combining the universes of Robot and Empire with Foundation). I have no problem with that at all. I'm much more annoyed with the incoherence of the basic elements of his main plot. (And that's not even approaching it as a theist! The theological propositions presumed with impunity and swallowed wholesale are very . . . oy.) I'll divide my review into these categories. The point is to show that these aren't just personal foibles on my part (even as a Christian) but disturbing injections of a troubling worldview that minimizes humanity and shows a real lack of awareness of the process of history and its writing:
The Ridiculous Oversimplification of History One of my favorite old sayings is "For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost. For want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail." Yes, this approaches chaos theory/butterfly effect, but it is quite applicable. The premise of Foundation seems to be that history can be controlled by manipulating a few people's decisions at a few key moments. Well, let's explain why that idea is ridiculous. The easiest and quickest way to stick chaos theory into Foundation mythology is Edward Lorenz who summarizes, "The present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future." The idea behind chaos theory is that the slightest discrepancies in initial conditions (including simple rounding errors in observation) lead to enormous changes in the outcome. When one adds the "for want of a nail" saying, it then means that any slightest change in any condition along the way would result in catastrophic changes to the outcome. Asimov isn't a fool. He tries to create plausibility for his main plot driver by turning "psychohistory" into a clever mathematic that is based on the largest possible population sample (in his case, billions of humans across the galaxy). Person behavior is unpredictable; crowd behavior is slightly predictable; mob behavior is predictable. Classic sociology (but that's later in this post). It would almost be forgivable if the entire series weren't based on the idea. I'm not implying that Asimov would have used chaos theory. It was in its infancy when he started writing. But there are some overlapping elements that were informed by sociology that I think are applicable. Wikipedia includes the double-pendulum gif on its chaos theory page, one that quickly and easily demonstrates the huge range of possible outcomes of a controlled multivariable system, and it also demonstrates constraint, a concept Asimov was certainly using. In short, though the drawing created by the double pendulum may never be exactly duplicated, the basic shape of the drawing can be predicted with extreme accuracy. In fact, let it go long enough, stand back far enough, and squint your eyes hard enough, and every one of these drawings will look the same. In Asimov's universe, we can think of each possible outcome as a dot on this drawing, which means that we can get pretty close to identifying its location / predicting history if we stay far enough away (never mind that the differences up close might be immense). But this theory has two very important conditions: the initial conditions must be known, and there can be no random influences. Asimov pays lip service to the latter with the episode of the Mule, as if to say, "Yep, I thought of that one! Here's how I handle it." (Never mind that his solution of making the Mule a rogue from a planet of Mules really only made things worse. And the whole idea of multiple entities remotely controlling history is incoherent in a purely material universe, which Asimov posits.) One very important problem here is that psychohistory is purely sociological. I'm no expert, but I would guess on the scale of the universe that Asimov populated there would be a number of non-sociological factors that would have a tremendous impact on even large populations (let alone individuals and families which, via chaos theory, can dramatically change the outcome of history): novas, comets, weather change, aliens. None of those things can be predicted or even modeled through sociology, and yet the believability of psychohistory is entirely dependent on the reader somehow accepting that none of things will intervene in this "closed" human system. But that's not the worst literary "sin" Asimov commits, as grievous as it is. No, it is the assumption that the initial conditions of the psychohistory model can be known with any kind of accuracy. I'll get into this again when I complain about his dependence on sociology, We can grant that humans have some behaviors that are predictable. I recently watched the Masters golf tournament, and I appreciate knowing what kind of sound effect I'll hear from the gallery based on the golf shot, but let's not confuse that with everyone in the gallery reacting the same way. That's not what's happening. The audible noise is but a fraction of the overall reaction. I'll use myself as an example. My decisions are conditioned by my life experiences, and those experienced are shaped by the people who participated in them, who were themselves conditioned by their experiences, and so on. My decisions are also directed by my convictions, assumptions, and priorities, all of which have been informed by other people (whom I have either learned from or observed directly or indirectly), who themselves made their decisions based on their own convictions, assumptions, and priorities, which were informed by others, and so on. Environmental considerations also play a role in such actions, not simply factors such as temperature and wind, but what is happening in the world around. But most importantly is the guarantee that sometimes people make choices that cannot be predicted or explained. At least, I know that is true in my life; sometimes I can be impulsive. Now - spread that over the billions of people who create the initial conditions for Asimov's amazing Seldon ex machina, and you have mathematical nonsense. Computing power has come a long way in the last 50-plus years, and I still don't trust the weather forecast to tell me what's going to happen in the next 24 hours. But I'm expected to believe an all-encompassing forecast of all human behavior over thousands of worlds and years and billions of people? And again - not just generally as in the double-pendulum but specifically and absolutely Some readers call this visionary. I call it lazy. (And again, never mind that the entire premise demands a universe without God or even what a non-Christian would accept as a triumphant human spirit. We are nothing more than avolitional sheep, but let me sit on that until the next section.) . . . And the Unawareness of Historiography Historiography is the process of writing (and understanding) history. It is a very, very complex thing. Why? Because history itself is unimaginably complex. We have millions upon millions of bits of historical data, and some people try to make sense out of it. Asimov references the philosophy of history multiple times in these books and attempts to sound very savvy about it. But his execution of it is a jumbled mess (proving something I know well: it's easier to critique than create). One of my favorite books on the subject, David Bebbington's Patterns in History (IVP, 1979), clearly explains the parameters, and that will help us understand why Foundation is such a mess. First, he says that most people (including historians) consider history through one of 5 lenses:
The long and short of that paragraph is history is so complex that we have extremely divergent schools of interpretation for it (the same data points; and this shouldn't be surprising - think about times when two people have come away from the same conversation with very different takes on what was said), and that does not even get into the basic fact that we will never know every data point for any given event, no matter how small it might seem. What Asimov does in Foundation is make a mockery of all of this by ignoring these minor data points and then combining rather incoherent elements of each school of historiography. [Aside: in reading for this entry, I came across Karl Popper's The Poverty of Historicism (Routledge, 1957) which kind of already says a lot of the things I just said, except in book-length and a long time ago (his first articles on the subject date to the 30s). He is not talking about "historicism" in the same way that I did above, but rather as the idea that people can predict the future through the social sciences, which is what I'm accusing Asimov of proposing. One point he adds that I didn't think of is we cannot accurately predict technological advancement (Back to the Future II, anyone?), and technology plays a huge role in societal development. That's a great point, Karl. Anyway, I'm sure I'll continue to find that my criticism of Asimov is not as original as I originally thought!] Asimov himself says that the idea for Foundation was sparked by reading Gibbon's masterpiece, the massive History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Well, Gibbon made it clear that he did not attempt to incorporate every aspect of Roman life, and he also wrote with the assumption that civilization was associated with rationalism, and Rome fell victim to barbarianism and religion. Gibbon's work was by definition a promotion of cyclical history because he used it to show England's direction (and to insult Christianity, but I digress). In the end, Asimov took the idea that history is cyclical and used that as the genesis of psychohistory, which is a mathematical model of those cycles. But then he goes way, way beyond it to the idea that by manipulating a few social variables, human history can be vastly changed. And that's basically the shtick of Foundation: wise, benevolent, forward-thinking humans directing humanity toward a better future. Sounds great, but now we're mixing multiple models of historiography. I already mentioned that "psychohistory" is rooted in cyclical history, but the idea of "guiding" history is really progressive history in the hands of "great men" (never mind that Asimov never pretends to explain how such variables are controlled). And yet, throughout the series Asimov talks about each society's/planet's self-identity, which is the core of historicism. And everything is completely atheist, which is the core of Marxism. And then we find out toward the end of the series that the Second Foundation has not been manipulating history at all, but has itself been manipulated by mysterious external forces which have conveniently hidden in the shadows for thousands of years. That approach, of course, is the Christian approach to history except with God replaced by a weird combination of evolved(?) humans who were somehow self-determining. Wait. Huh? That doesn't begin to make any kind of sense. It's absolutely incoherent. That's not great fiction - that's a mess. The Indefensible Reduction of Humanity As a historian, the above is my primary complaint of Foundation. But as a Christian, Asimov's anthropology is a far, far bigger concern. Do not read this section as a rejection of the social sciences; I have no problem with the objective observation of human social behavior. This is not even a rejection of sociology, per se. That term is used in so many ways that it would be irresponsible to pin the attitudes or conclusions of some of its practitioners on all. Rather, I am going to zero in on the approach to sociology assumed by Asimov, that human beings can be predicted and manipulated with certainty and that the social process can be understood with certainty. (Remember, the point of the series is that somebody/thing has been directing human history from afar with extreme precision, even if we have met multiple red herrings along the way.) That goes back to the origins of sociology as a rejection of Christian anthropology birthed out of the at-the-time evolving Darwinian worldview. "Now that we believe humans have evolved from sludge, that must mean that humans exhibit basic animal behavior. Let's write a book!" (I'm not exactly sure where these guys found the confidence in their own higher cognitive abilities, but whatever.) In other words, the foundation of sociology is not "objective observation" but the declaration that human beings have the same volition as sheep (deterministic, avolitional, abulic, there's got to be a word out there that captures my point). You can find that idea in every major tradition of social theory. For example, Functionalism is the idea that society has evolved toward the end of macro stability. And I see the overarching point of that idea; it's basically what Hobbes wrote in Leviathan. There is great value in observing how elements within human society have to work together to create peace and prosperity. The problem comes when functionalists take the same step that Hobbes took and say that such observation demands focusing on man's "animal nature." And what does that mean? Well, they say, the human body with its various organs can be seen as an illustration of society; it has evolved with that functional end in mind. And because man, as every animal, has self-preservation as his highest priority, he naturally slots into place. Boy, that illustration is a problem. I don't think I've ever heard of the heart and lungs having to work out an agreement with the blood vessels on blood flow (and wouldn't that be ignoring the rights of blood cells?). I don't think the kidney has to decide what it's going to do today. There is no model in which people can be made to resemble organs. Hobbes at least recognized this and paid lip service to free will, but he (naturally) put will (including conscience) and religion and enthusiasm in the category of those things that tend to destroy society. (And let's not be so obtuse as to say that animals are entirely predictable! Sometimes our coyote-mix eats his dinner; sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes our conure comes out of her cage; sometimes she doesn't. I might be able to tell you 90% of what they will do, but that last 10% is a doozy!) On the other hand, Conflict Theorists emphasize the struggle within society rather than the harmony, and see social behavior as a reflection of inequalities. And they certainly have a point (otherwise Marx wouldn't have been change the course of human history as he did!). But that masks the fact that people define "conflict" differently, or even "equality" differently. And people behave differently under conditions of perceived conflict and concord, and it only takes one example of outlier behavior (remember my comments about chaos theory?) to make a major impact on society - one person who had not shown terrorist tendencies, or violent tendencies, or psychopathic tendencies (or likewise someone who had not been known for kindness or grace) to act out of character and change a society. The most dangerous outcome of a conflict theory is Social Darwinism (survival of the fittest societies). Hopefully, I don't need to tell you how Darwin's theory of evolution was used to justify the domination or even extermination of one race by another. Western Europeans were more "evolved" than Africans, Asians, Middle Easterners, Slavs, South Americans, etc., therefore they had the right to rule over them. (Of course, the Western Europeans had determined what "evolved" meant.) The true end of that approach to sociology was Hitler's Aryan race, to which he ironically(?) didn't belong. Too many in America naively ignore this inexorable direction of a Darwinian (atheistic) view of humanity. Even those who hold a progressive view of history must admit that "great men" direct that progress, and eventually those great men turn out to be Lenin and Hitler; in a world where people try to live without God, you always end up with Marxists and Fascists. That seems problematic. Social theorists have made helpful and valuable observations about human behavior. Mob psychology has been used to incite riots, and it has also been used to defuse them. Sociological input has greatly informed cross-cultural communication at the state level. And other stuff. But my goodness the bits of it that are actually true are things we learned long ago in the Bible. Read the books of Judges and Acts and you will find some powerful statements about societal behavior! Why? Because God created mankind and knows what is in us, every one of us (John 2:25). David wrote that God knew every word on his tongue before he said it, and that every day of his life was already in God's book before he was even born (Ps 139). True anthropology begins with the image of God which was specially created in humans and not the product of an evolutionary process: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” I'll have to write another article that goes in-depth into this subject. For the purposes of this summary, I believe that the image of God in humanity refers to stewardship, creativity, and relationship. As a result of the Fall, these attributes were corrupted, and sin entered our lives (primarily in the areas of stewardship, creativity, and relationship - think about it). Our relationship with God was broken. God then sent Jesus into the world to live without giving in to sin and thus offer Himself as a blameless sacrifice, accepting the punishment humans deserve for failing to live as God intended and opening the way for our relationship with God to be mended. And so it is now for everyone who follows Jesus. God's rule and reign over the universe He created is such that nothing happens apart from His allowance, and yet He gives His creatures a truly free will such that they are fully responsible for their own decisions and actions. Now let's get into Asimov's approach to humanity. Hopefully you've made the connection that the few things I said about God's operation in the world sounds similar to what Asimov attributed to the ancient robot Daneel. Obviously that's intentional. Asimov, as we know, was an atheist. And he despised Evangelical Christians, particularly the way they approached science (that will be worth a future article; we can't ignore Asimov's complaints). The final two books of the Foundation series were published in 1982 and 1986, long after Asimov publicly embraced his atheism. This is very clearly a slap of all God-fearers: humans searching for the origin of life (literally searching for Earth) find a being that has been controlling humanity for millennia. And it's a robot. Blasphemy, purely, simply, intentionally. I guess Asimov is trying to justify his approach by saying that a robot would have the computing power to keep up with each of the countless billions of humans in the galaxy? Of course, humans created him, so the illustration breaks down immediately (particularly when we try to understand exactly how Daneel would have known all of the nuances of human volition and how to manipulate them, as if that were possible in the first place). And Asimov would own my "accusations" with gladness: Eventually, the robots grew advanced enough to become just sufficiently human to appreciate why human beings should resent being deprived of everything human in the name of their own good. Therefore, it is said, it was the robots who established Eternity somehow and became the Eternals. They located a Reality in which they felt human beings could be as secure as possible - alone in the Galaxy. (FE 362) Never mind the ludicrousness of the premise; the intent is pretty simple. That said, the second breakdown is actually much more troubling to me as a human. The true God is sovereign over the universe, maintaining His control over all while still allowing the free actions of self-determining agents (not just humans but also angels). But the Second Foundation/Gaia/Daneel maintains control over the human (not the natural) universe by manipulation. "Free choice" is an illusion in this universe because people's minds have been modified so as to come to the decisions they do. And to make a long story short, I don't believe that Asimov's proposition of manipulation is remotely possible. Human beings are far more complex than he gives us credit for. (I will readily admit that I don't understand how God's sovereignty intersects humanity's responsibility, but at least I have the justification of believing that the Creator of the human race would be able to make that tension work.) Believing that human behavior is the product of an ancient robot creates many more problems for me than it solves, but more on this in the next section. One way or the other, Asimov's vision collapses into nonsense. Remove the image of God from humanity, and you simply have the wrong picture. Every illustration I can come up with (analyzing a car's performance without its engine, studying adult cognition by observing toddlers, learning about squirrel behavior by observing carcasses) is so ridiculous as to make no sense. Because Asimov intentionally ignored this fundamental element of humanity, he and every sociologist who follows this same path will always be proven wrong in their predictions. Galaxia: or, Be Careful What You Wish For This is ultimately where I'm going with my critique. As a historian, Asimov's reduction of history to a few key actions is insulting. As a Christian, Asimov's reduction of humanity to an absolutely manipulable beast is insulting. But as a human, Asimov's elevation of the idea of "Galaxia" as the hope for humanity scares the yikes out of me. Let me give Asimov the credit of leaving the ending just ambiguous enough that it is clear he understood the dangers of his cum-ba-yah model, but there can be no doubt that Asimov promotes Galaxia. Galaxia is the idea that no one has a distinct identity; every being in the world (or in his case the galaxy) has melded together, sharing their intellectual abilities in one giant world/galaxy-mind. Everyone literally operates together for the good of the world/galaxy. It is sort of like the goal of Marxism, where everybody's identity is the state and the good of the state is the highest value. But it is very different than Marxism in that there is no "state" above the people - the people together are the state. It is also sort of like the goal of Lenin's "Imagine" which basically says "We all need to just get along, and the only way to do that is to remove all possibilities of individualism." (That idea, of course, is the theme of such science fiction classics as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Ayn Rand's Anthem, and we all know how those writers thought it would turn out.) But it is different than Imagine-ism in that there is a very clear and absolute set of acceptable behaviors which people would never imagine violating because they have no individual impulses. This is a very difficult subject to write about because its proponents make it sound fantastic and that anyone who would disagree is a misanthrope. Let's take Gaia as our example. It is a world so "advanced" that every part of the planet (even the inanimate objects!) shares a group mind (hive mind?). There is no need for written records or computers because all of the brains operate together telepathically. Natural disasters come with ample warning; weather is strictly controlled. Plants and animals down the food chain gladly give their lives for the well-being of their eaters, knowing that their consciousness(?) will be recycled. (Seriously - this means that you're able to talk to your food while you digest it. I find that odd.) Everybody works together for the best good of the whole. It's Utopia! A truly self-regulating system where everything is always in perfect balance. Who could argue with that? Let's set aside the fact that the existence of God precludes the possibility of a true group mind (I know that's a huge statement; I get it via the parameters of the story of Babel) such that Gaia could never truly exist. Every creature of the universe is created distinctly and uniquely, and God delights in our diversity. For the sake of argument, let's say that we could create Galaxia. Would we really want to? I say no, and the choice is pretty obvious. First, and most importantly for those in favor of this idea to consider, there is right and wrong in the Galaxia model. Indeed, in Galaxia, right and wrong is absolute; there are no demonstrations or acts of civil disobedience because no one can do so. Every mind is shared - there are no individual thoughts or secrets. For anyone who thinks this is somehow to be preferred to our current system (which is certainly flawed), just know that if you were in it, you wouldn't realize that you might ever have doubts about it. And if that isn't enough to give you pause, also realize that this absolute right and wrong that governs the behavior of every being is itself determined by "vote." Yes, truth and morality in Galaxia is relative (to the delight of anti-Christians everywhere) but once determined it is fixed. It would be difficult to convince me that a truth is relative if there are no options allowed to be considered. In the real universe created by God where there are truths built into the fabric of existence, humans are given the rights and freedoms to question and act contrary to certain truths (not the physical laws but the moral ones). That's not an option in Galaxia. And if someone counters with the question, "Well, isn't that the idea of the Christian heaven, where no one is allowed to break the rules?" I would answer, "You're on the right track, but you've missed some fundamental differences." There's a great old theological formula written by Augustine: Posse peccare (able to sin; mankind before the fall) Yes, in heaven, humanity is absolutely constrained by a "not able." The difference? Ironically, choice. Humans choose to enter that state by trusting in Jesus Christ - choosing to die to self and live to Christ. Asimov tries to acknowledge this by creating the character Golan Trevize, who is known to make "good decisions" and thus is allowed to choose on behalf of the human race to bring about Galaxia. And it is said over and over again that Trevize made this decision without manipulation. But hopefully my above sections on history demonstrates that Asimov cannot be allowed the liberty of saying that every other part of the galaxy has been strictly controlled and yet this one decision, which will be driven by the sum of his previous experiences, is libertarian! That's lazy. I'm absolutely comfortable believing that God can along those lines, but then God created me. Asimov created his universe and so he's responsible for its coherent operation. Now let's take a look at the elephant in the room for those who still like the idea of truth by vote in Galaxia. If truth/right and wrong is determined by Galaxia, how is it determined? Who determines it? According to Asimov, the telepathic shared conscience organically comes to that determination, and everybody gets to participate. Literally. Rocks are a part of it, plankton, insects, birds, everything. But it's proportional based on mental power. Rocks contribute a very small part of the vote. Hamsters a larger part. Humans a still larger part. But some humans, by virtue of their greater humanness? Here's Asimov: The whole planet and everything on it is Gaia. We're all individuals - we're all separate organisms - but we all share an overall consciousness. The inanimate planet does so least of all, the various forms of life to a varying degree, and human beings most of all - but we all share. (FE 349) I've written quite a bit about "choice" in my musings. The concept is very important to me. Human freedom. Well, Asimov tried to bring that up, too. Trevize said, "But just as once you were children to the robots, now you are children to the group consciousness. Have you not lost humanity now, as you had then?" "It is different Trev. What we do now is our own choice - our own choice. That is what counts. It is not forced on us from outside, but is developed from the inside. And we are different in another way, too. We are unique in the Galaxy. There is no world like Gaia." (FE 365) That sure sounds an awful lot like what I've written from a Christian perspective, doesn't it? Is Asimov not a kindred spirit simply coming to the same conclusions as I but from a different angle? Is what we're saying not basically the same? No. A thousand times no. Asimov works in a great deal of "free will" mumbo jumbo into his final chapters of Foundation's Edge, but it's all illusory. Asimov through his didacticians of plot advancement admits that Trevize's "free choice" in favor of Galaxia was subtly manipulated from the outside - not on him, but on his companion who then influenced him. In Asimov's universe, humanity's actions have all been manipulated by the all-seeing, benevolent robot Daneel. Here are a few quotes from Foundation and Earth: I engineered the founding of Gaia. If humanity could be made a single organism, it would become a concrete object, and it could be dealt with. It was, however, not as easy to create a superorganism as I had hoped. In the first place, it could not be done unless human beings valued the superorganism more than their individuality, and I had to find a mind-cast that would allow that. Meanwhile, five centuries ago, when it seemed that I would never work out methods for getting round all the difficulties that stood in the way of establishing Gaia, I turned to the second-best and helped bring about the development of the science of psychohistory. Over a period of years, the humaniform robots that have been working with me have been, one by one, called home. Their last tasks have been to remove all references to Earth in the planetary archives. And without myself and my fellow-robots in full play, Gaia will lack the essential tools to carry through the development of Galaxia in less than an inordinate period of time. Trevize said, in an attempt at cool reason, "You see how it is, Bliss. The child is a Spacer and Daneel was designed and put together by Spacers. The child was brought up by a robot and knew nothing else on an estate as empty as this one. The child has transductive powers which Daneel will need, and she will live for three or four centuries, which may be what is required for the construction of Galaxia." Bliss said, her cheeks flushed and her eyes moist, "I suppose that the robot maneuvered our trip to Earth in such a way as to make us pass through Solaria in order to pick up a child for his use." This bleeds over into my complaints about the non-existent plot; everything has been arranged. Again, I hope I have established the complexity of human decision; no "small nudge" in isolation can guarantee a decision - those decisions are products of lifetimes of influences, all of which must be controlled to control a single decision (no amount of feeble "I almost lost you" protests can change the inevitability of the plot device). So we find out that a robot has been making all of the decisions and setting right and wrong, a robot who is constrained by the famous Robot Laws: First, `A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' Second, `A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.' Third, `A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.' Eventually, robots came up with a "Zeroth Law": 'A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.' That sounds well and good. I think I would sign up for a civilization in which the controllers had to follow those rules. Of course, there is the nasty question of what "injury" means and what "harm" means. It is quite possible that the robots have determined those definitions themselves, quite a concern considering they aren't human! Or, they inherited those definitions from their creators, passing the buck on to some people who died thousands of years before the galaxy was explored. Either possibility is a problem. So this turns out to be a combination of some of the worst sci-fi tropes out there: some people are more equal than others, but all are unwitting puppets of the man behind the curtain. And this story is celebrated as hope for humanity? Simplicity vs. Complexity. There is a background matter that I would hope would turn the tide against the nonsense that is Galaxia. Throughout Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth, we see a movement away from "complexity." The characters talk about the legends of the unbelievable complexity of life on earth, and how the further away we moved the simpler ecosystems became. And this was intentional. Complex systems are more unstable. Simple systems can be kept under control. Well, sure, if human beings and robots are the ones in charge. But at what cost? For this galaxy to come about, diversity has to be truncated. Does the modern reader realize this? In Asimov's future, there is less diversity! Necessarily so. That's actually his primary plot driver for Trevize: "Our own Galaxy has developed only one species of an intelligence great enough to develop a technological society, but what do we know of the other galaxies? . . . An invader that finds us divided against ourselves will dominate us all, or destroy us all. The only true defense is to produce Galaxia, which cannot be turned against itself and which can meet invaders with maximum power." That appeals to our utilitarian impulses, but slow down and think about the cost. It is a means to an end, but are we sure there is no other means? Is that really what anybody wants? Is it even possible? Well, answering the latter question is pretty easy if one acknowledges the role of God as Creator of the universe: The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. . . . So God created the large sea-creatures[g] and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. . . . So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. . . . Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth,[h] and the creatures that crawl[i] on the earth.” (Genesis 1) With God in charge, diversity and complexity are delightful, beautiful and savage all at the same time. But God can handle that. God doesn't get hung up on laws of robotics; He created the laws of space and time and reality. The universe "works" because God created it to work. He doesn't simplify it; He lets it grow more and more complex with each passing moment. Check that - let me rephrase. He lets us discover more and more of the complexity that has always been there.
Let's be honest. I'm comparing the universe created by God Almighty to a universe created by some guy. Of course it's going to pale in comparison! But here's my point: Asimov sets up his universe as preferred; he sets up his version of history as practical. That's not good. That's a poor substitute for God's reality. Well, this article has gone on way too long already, so I'm going to stop here. I have two more points to make, and when I get to them, I will link them here.
2 Comments
Mashdraggin
4/7/2017 05:27:39 am
Asimov was smart, but I think his ego blinded him to a lot of things, including the fact that he did not understand people nearly as well as he thought he did. To give just one example, being familiar with the psychological aspects of leprosy, it is quite impossible for a society such as found on the planet Solaria in his novel The Naked Sun to ever come into existence. I could give others.
Reply
Matt Ward
4/10/2017 08:53:47 am
I agree. And if your experience with leprosy is first- or second-hand, my heart and prayer goes out to you.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorIf I ever say something in here that doesn't make sense, please ask me to clarify. It always makes sense in my head, but that doesn't necessary mean anything to you . . . Categories
All
|