Future history
response to Michael A.M. Lerner and Ethan Hill's post The New Nostradamus
Revisiting Azimov's psycho-history is right. If one knows human nature and also knows history, then one can predict future-history. Situations re-occur, Human nature stays the same. That is why Thucydides is still pertinent today, and also why people think Nostrodamus is predicting the future when he is just re-affirming that human nature remains constant. Azimov, however, realized psycho-history's limitations and knew its precision would fail. Put this idea on the fiction shelf right between Nostrodamus and the Foundation series.
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Precision
Since it's not perfect, it's fiction. Good thinking! Not.
Accurate prediction scares people for many reasons, most of which are alleviated if they're the ones getting the predictions.
The psycho-history issue that needs more exploration is the potential effect of publicizing the model's projections. What is the feedback effect? Does the future become opaque as Asimov suggested? Or does the information solidify the predictions? Or does it vary, depending on the issue and what's at stake?
Anyway, don't put down sci-fi. As is frequently the case with dismissive rejections, the idea that it is mere escapism is 180° wrong; it is actually the only literature which takes long-term issues seriously.
Posted on October 31, 2007 — by BrianH
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