Psychohistory is the name of a fictional science, which combined history, sociology, and mathematical statistics, in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe, to create a (nearly) exact science of the actions of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. History studies time in human terms. ... Sociology (from Latin: socius, companion; and the suffix -ology, the study of, from Greek λόγος, lógos, knowledge) is an academic and applied discipline that studies society and human social interaction. ... This article is about the field of statistics. ... Isaac Asimov (January 2?, 1920?[1] – April 6, 1992), IPA: , originally Исаак Озимов but now transcribed into Russian as Айзек Азимов) was a Russian-born American Jewish author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. ... Hari Seldons holographic image, pictured on a paperback edition of Foundation, appears at various times in the First Foundations history, to guide it through the social and economic crises that befall it. ... The Emblem of the Galactic Empire. ...

Underlying assumptions

The basis of psychohistory is the idea that, while the actions of a particular individual could not be foreseen, the laws of statistics could be applied to large groups of people and used to predict the general flow of future events. Asimov used the analogy of a gas: in a gas, the motion of a single molecule is very difficult to predict, but the mass action of the gas can be predicted to a high level of accuracy - known in physics as the Kinetic Theory. Asimov applied this concept to the population of the fictional Galactic Empire, which numbered in the quadrillions. The character responsible for the science's creation, Hari Seldon, established two postulates: For other uses, see Gas (disambiguation). ... The Law of Mass Action, first expressed by Waage and Guldberg in 1864 [1], states (in modern language) that the rate of a chemical reaction is proportional to probability that the reacting molecules will be found together in a small volume. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Kinetic theory or kinetic theory of gases attempts to explain macroscopic properties of gases, such as pressure, temperature, or volume, by considering their molecular composition and motion. ... // Throughout this article, exponential or scientific notation is used. ... Hari Seldon (cover art for Foundation, by Stephen Youll) Hari Seldon is the intellectual hero of Isaac Asimovs Foundation Series. ...

• That the population whose behaviour was modeled should be sufficiently large
• They should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses.

Development of psychohistory

Later on in his career, Asimov described historical (pre-Seldon) origins of Psychohistory. In The Robots of Dawn, which takes place thousands of years before Foundation, he describes roboticist Han Fastolfe's attempts to create the science based on careful observation of others, particularly his daughter Vasilia. In Prelude to Foundation we learn that it was in fact one of Fastolfe's robots, R. Daneel Olivaw, that manipulated Seldon into practical application of this science. The Robots of Dawn is a whodunit science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. ... Foundation is the first book in Isaac Asimovs Foundation Trilogy (later expanded into The Foundation Series). ... Dr. Han Fastolfe is a fictional character in Isaac Asimovs Robot series. ... Prelude to Foundation Prelude to Foundation is a novel written by Isaac Asimov. ... R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. ...

Limitations of psychohistory

The fact that Seldon established a Second Foundation of psychic adepts to over see his Seldon Plan, can be taken as an indication that even Seldon himself had doubts about the ultimate ability of a purely mathematical approach to predicting historical process, and that he recognized that the development of psychic skills such as those used by the Mule, had the ability to invalidate the assumptions his models were based upon. The Seldon methodology, might therefore only work at a certain level of species development, and would over time become less useful. The Seldon Plan is the central theme of Isaac Asimovs Foundation Series of stories and novels. ... The Mule is a fictional character from Isaac Asimovs Foundation Series. ...

Psychohistory has one basic, underlying limitation which was only first postulated on literally the last page of the final book in the Foundation series: Psychohistory only functions in a galaxy populated only by humans. In Asimov's Foundation series, humans are the only sentient race that developed in the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Psychohistory was developed to predict the actions of large groups of humans. Even robots technically fall under the umbrella of psychohistory, because they were built by humans, and are thus more or less a human "action", or at least, possess a thought-framework similar enough to that of their human creators that psychohistory can predict their actions. However, psychohistory cannot predict the actions of a sentient alien race; their psychology is so divergent from that of humans that normal psychohistory cannot understand or predict their actions. The end of the series offered two possibilities. The first was that sentient races actually very rarely develop, i.e. only humans evolved in the Milky Way Galaxy, and in most other galaxies, it was probable that only one sentient race would develop. However, statistically two or more alien races might evolve in the same galaxy, leading them into inevitable conflict. The fighting in this other galaxy would only end when one race emerged the victor, and after the prolonged conflict with other races, would have developed an aggressive and expansionist mindset. In contrast, humans had never encountered another sentient species in the Milky Way galaxy, so they never felt greatly compelled to expand to other galaxies, but instead to fight other humans over control of the Milky Way. Eventually, such an aggressive alien race would expand from galaxy to galaxy, and eventually try to invade the Milky Way galaxy. The other possibility was that through genetic engineering, sub-sets of humanity could alter themselves so significantly from baseline humans that they could for all intents and purposes be considered "aliens". The specific candidate for this theory was the Solarians; humans evolved from an old Spacer world which had genetically modified themselves into hermaphrodites with incredible telekinetic mental powers.

Asimov on psychohistory

On September 25, 1987, Asimov gave an interview to Terry Gross on her National Public Radio program, Fresh Air. In it, Gross asked him about psychohistory: is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ... Terry Gross (born 1951) is the host and co-executive producer of Fresh Air, an interview format radio show produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and distributed throughout the United States by National Public Radio. ... “NPR” redirects here. ... For the Scottish student radio station, see Fresh Air (Edinburgh). ...

Gross: "What did you have in mind when you coined the term and the concept?"

Asimov: "Well, I wanted to write a short story about the fall of the Galactic Empire. I had just finished reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [for] the second time, and I thought I might as well adapt it on a much larger scale to the Galactic Empire and get a story out of it. And my editor John Campbell was much taken with the idea, and said he didn't want it wasted on a short story. He wanted an open-ended series so it lasts forever, perhaps. And so I started doing that. In order to keep the story going from story to story, I was essentially writing future history, and I had to make it sufficiently different from modern history to give it that science fictional touch. And so I assumed that the time would come when there would be a science in which things could be predicted on a probabilistic or statistical basis."

Gross: "Do you think that would be good if there really was such a science?"

Asimov: "Well, I can't help but think it would be good, except that in my stories, I always have opposing views. In other words, people argue all possible... all possible... ways of looking at psychohistory and deciding whether it is good or bad. So you can't really tell. I happen to feel sort of on the optimistic side. I think if we can somehow get across some of the problems that face us now, humanity has a glorious future, and that if we could use the tenets of psychohistory to guide ourselves we might avoid a great many troubles. But on the other hand, it might create troubles. It's impossible to tell in advance."

// The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a major literary achievement of the 18th century published in six volumes, was written by the celebrated English historian Edward Gibbon. ... The cover of , volume 1, with a picture of Campbell drawn by Frank Kelly Freas John Wood Campbell, Jr. ...

Psychohistory in other fiction

Asimov's ideas figure prominently in Donald Kingsbury's novel Psychohistorical Crisis, a re-imagining of the world of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, set after the establishment of the Second Empire. Donald MacDonald Kingsbury (born 12 February 1929) in San Francisco, California is an American–Canadian science fiction author. ... Psychohistorical Crisis is a science fiction novel by Donald Kingsbury, published by Tor Books in 2001. ...

In Fantastic Four #542, Mister Fantastic, involved in the Marvel Universe's Civil War event, reveals that his real reason for supporting the superhero registration act which prompted the Civil War is due to his development of a working version of Isaac Asimov's fictional Psychohistory concept. Mister Fantastic's application of this science indicates to him that billions will die in escalating conflicts unless the act is made law. For other uses, see Fantastic Four (disambiguation). ... Mr. ... This does not cite any references or sources. ... Civil War is a Marvel Comics summer 2006 crossover event, based around a core limited series of the same name written by Mark Millar and penciled by Steve McNiven. ... In Marvel Comics fictional Marvel Universe, the Registration Acts - the Mutant Registration Act (or MRA) and Super-human Registration Act (SRA or sometimes SHRA) - are legislative bills which, when passed into law, enforce the mandatory registration of super-powered individuals with the government. ... One thousand million (1,000,000,000) is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001. ...

The concept of psychohistory is also present in the Legend of the Galactic Heroes (銀河英雄伝説, Ginga Eiyū Densetsu) by Yoshiki Tanaka. Legend of the Galactic Heroes ) is a series of science fiction novels by Yoshiki Tanaka. ... Dr. Yoshiki Tanaka (田中 芳樹 Tanaka Yoshiki, born October 22, 1952) is a famous novelist in Japan. ...

Psychohistory in Role Playing Games

Psychohistory is included in the Traveller science fiction roleplaying game, released in 1977. The alien race known as the Hivers use extensive manipulation of other cultures based on psychohistorical data to achieve their own ends. The assassination of the Third Imperium's Emperor Strephon has been rumoured to be a Hiver manipulation which was based on the psychohistorical data indicating the eventual fall of the Third Imperium. Traveller is a series of related science fiction role-playing games, first published in 1977 by Game Designers Workshop. ...

Literary influences

Literary critics have described Asimov's psychohistory as a reformulation, either for better or worse, of Karl Marx's theory of history (Historical Materialism) or Kant's theory of controllable history, though Asimov denied any direct influence.^[1] Psychohistory also has echoes of work in the social sciences that by the 1960s would lead to attempts at large-scale social prediction and control such as Project Camelot and modernization theory. Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical... Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ... Project Camelot was a social science research project of the United States Defense Department in 1964. ... Modernization theory is a socio-economic theory, sometimes known as (or as being encompassed within) development theory, which highlights the positive role played by the developed world in modernizing and facilitating sustainable development in underdeveloped nations, often contrasted with dependency theory. ...

See also

• Psychohistory, the study of the psychological motivation of historical and current events
• Macroeconomics, the real economics sub-field that considers aggregate behavior
• Robopsychology, the fictional study of the personalities of intelligent machines

Psychohistory is the study of the psychological motivations of historical events. ... Circulation in macroeconomics Macroeconomics is a branch of Economics that deals with the performance, structure, and behavior of the economy as a whole. ... Robopsychology is the fictional study of the personalities of intelligent machines. ...

Notes and references

1. ^ Booker, M. Keith. Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War: American Science Fiction and the Roots of Postmodernism, 1946-1964. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001. pp. 34-38. "Numerous critics have noticed the parallels between Marx's and Seldon's visions of history." Among the critics Booker discusses regarding the connection between Marxism and psychohistory are: James Gunn, Donald Wollheim, and Charles Elkins.

James Edwin Gunn (born 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American Science Fiction author, editor, scholar, and anthologist. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

External links

• Asimov interviews (including the above)