A69.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
Inglish Site.69.
*
TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
***
In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
*
Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
*
This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
*
Index.
169.Artemisia.
170.Hari Seldon.
171.The Seldon Plan.
*
169.Artemisia /??rt??mi?zi?/ is a large, diverse genus of plants with between 200 and 400 species belonging to the daisy family Asteraceae. Common names for various species in the genus include mugwort, wormwood, and sagebrush. Artemisia comprises hardy herbaceous plants and shrubs, which are known for the powerful chemical constituents in their essential oils. Artemisia species grow in temperate climates of both hemispheres, usually in dry or semiarid habitats. Notable species include A. vulgaris (common mugwort), A. tridentata (big sagebrush), A. annua (sagewort), A. absinthium (wormwood), A. dracunculus (tarragon), and A. abrotanum (southernwood). The leaves of many species are covered with white hairs.
Most species have strong aromas and bitter tastes from terpenoids and sesquiterpene lactones, which discourage herbivory, and may have had a selective advantage.
Plant terpenoids are used extensively for their aromatic qualities. They play a role in traditional herbal remedies and are under investigation for antibacterial, antineoplastic, and other pharmaceutical functions.
Sesquiterpene lactones are a class of chemical compounds; they are sesquiterpenoids (built from three isoprene units) and contain a lactone ring, hence the name. They are found in many plants and can cause allergic reactions and toxicity if overdosed, particularly in grazing livestock.
Types of sesquiterpene lactones.
Structures of some sesquiterpene lactones:
A: Germacranolides, B: Heliangolides, C+D: Guaianolides, E: Pseudoguaianolides, F: Hypocretenolides, G: Eudesmanolides.
Sesquiterpene lactones can be divided into several main classes including germacranolides, heliangolides, guaianolides, pseudoguaianolides, hypocretenolides, and eudesmanolides.
The small flowers are wind-pollinated. Artemisia species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species.
Some botanists split the genus into several genera, but DNA analysis does not support the maintenance of the genera Crossostephium, Filifolium, Neopallasia, Seriphidium, and Sphaeromeria; three other segregate genera Stilnolepis, Elachanthemum, and Kaschgaria, are maintained by this evidence. Occasionally, some of the species are called sages, causing confusion with the Salvia sages in the family Lamiaceae.
Name.
The name "artemisia" ultimately derives from the Greek goddess Artemis (Roman Diana), the namesake of Greek Queens Artemisia I and II. A more specific reference may be to Artemisia II of Caria, a botanist and medical researcher who died in 350 BC.
Cultivation and uses.
The aromatic leaves of some species are used for flavouring. Most species have an extremely bitter taste. A. dracunculus (tarragon) is widely used as a culinary herb, particularly important in French cuisine.
Artemisia absinthium (absinth wormwood) was used to repel fleas and moths, and in brewing (wormwood beer, wormwood wine). The aperitif vermouth (derived from the German word Wermut, "wormwood") is a wine flavored with aromatic herbs, but originally with wormwood. The highly potent spirits absinthe and Malört also contain wormwood.
*
170.Hari Seldon.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on Trantor, Seldon develops psychohistory, allowing him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. His prediction of the eventual fall of the Galactic Empire is the reason behind his nickname "Raven" Seldon.
In the first five books of the Foundation series, Hari Seldon made only one in-the-flesh appearance, in the first chapter of the first book (Foundation), although he did appear other times in pre-recorded messages to reveal a Seldon Crisis. After writing five books in chronological order, Asimov went back with two books to better describe the initial process. The two prequels?Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation?describe his life in considerable detail. He is also the central character of the Second Foundation Trilogy written after Asimov's death (Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear, and Foundation's Triumph by David Brin), which are set after Asimov's two prequels.
Galactic Empire First Minister and psychohistorian Hari Seldon was born in the 10th month of the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era (GE) (-79 Foundation Era (FE)) and died 12,069 GE (1 FE). (In Asimov's saga, the Galactic Era begins when the Galactic Empire is founded at an unknown date roughly 11,000 years in the future: the timeline can be deduced from some hints Asimov dropped in his other science fiction works, including the Robot and Empire series.)
He was born on the planet Helicon in the Arcturus sector where his father worked as a tobacco grower in a hydroponics plant.
He shows incredible mathematical abilities at a very early age. He also learns martial arts on Helicon that later help him on Trantor, the principal art being Heliconian Twisting (a form seemingly equal parts Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, and Submission Wrestling). Helicon is said to be "less notable for its mathematics, and more for its martial arts" (Prelude to Foundation). Seldon is awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics for his work on turbulence at the University of Helicon. There he becomes an assistant professor specializing in the mathematical analysis of social structures.:p. 73 :p. 76
Seldon is the subject of a biography by Gaal Dornick. Seldon is Emperor Cleon I's second and last First Minister, the first being Eto Demerzel/R. Daneel Olivaw. He is deposed as First Minister after Cleon I's assassination.
Seldon, Hari? . . . found dead, slumped over desk in his office at Streeling University in 12,069 (1 F.E.). Apparently Seldon had been working up to his last moments on psychohistorical equations; his activated Prime Radiant was discovered clutched in hand. According to Seldon?s instructions, the instrument was shipped by his colleague Gaal Dornick who had recently emigrated to Terminus. Seldon's body was jettisoned into space, also in accordance with instructions he?d left. The official memorial service on Trantor was simple, though attended. It was worth noting that Seldon?s old friend former First Minister Eto Demerzel attended the event. Demerzel had not been seen since his mysterious disappearance immediately following the Joranumite Conspiracy during the reign of Emperor Cleon I. Attempts by the Commission of Public Safety to locate Demerzel in the days following the Seldon memorial proved to be unsuccessful. Wanda Seldon, Hari Seldon?s granddaughter, did not attend the ceremony. It was rumored that she was grief-stricken and had refused all public appearances. To this day, her whereabouts from then on remain unknown. It has been said that Hari Seldon left this life as lived it, for he died with the future he created unfolding all around him.
?Encyclopedia Galactica
Using psychohistory, Seldon mathematically determines what he calls The Seldon Plan?a plan to determine the right time and place to set up a new society, one that would replace the collapsing Galactic Empire by sheer force of social pressure, but over only a thousand-year time span, rather than the ten-to-thirty-thousand-year time span that would normally have been required, and thus reduce the human suffering from living in a time of barbarism. The Foundation is placed on Terminus, a resource-poor planet entirely populated by scientists and their families. The planet?or so Seldon claimed?was originally occupied to create the Encyclopedia Galactica, a vast compilation of the knowledge of a dying galactic empire. In reality, Terminus had a much larger role in his Plan, which larger role he had to conceal from its inhabitants at first.
Seldon visits Trantor to attend the Decennial Mathematics Convention. He presents a paper which indicates that one could theoretically predict the Galactic Empire's future. He is able to show that Galactic society can be represented in a simulation simpler than itself (in a finite number of iterations before the onset of chaotic noise smears discerning sets of events). :p. 148 He does so using a technique invented that past century. At first, Seldon has no idea how this could be done in practice, and he is fairly confident that no one could actually fulfill the possibility. Shortly after his presentation, he becomes a lightning rod for political forces who want to use psychohistory for their own purposes. The rest of the novel tells of his flight, which lasts for approximately a year and which takes him through the complex and variegated world of Trantor. During his flight to escape the various political factions, he discovers how psychohistory can be made a practical science. It is in this novel that he meets his future wife Dors Venabili, future adopted son Raych Seldon, and future partner Yugo Amaryl.
This novel is actually told as a sequence of short stories, just as was the case with the original trilogy. They take place at intervals a decade or more apart, and tell the story of Hari's life, starting about ten years after Prelude and ending with his death. The stories contrast his increasingly successful professional life with his increasingly unsuccessful personal life.
Seldon becomes involved in politics when Eto Demerzel becomes a target for a smear campaign conducted by Laskin Joranum. He eventually takes Demerzel's place as First Minister, despite his reluctance to divide his attention between government and the development of Psychohistory. His career comes to an end when Cleon I is assassinated by his gardener (a random event Seldon could not have predicted) and the seizure of power by a military junta. Seldon eventually causes the fall of the junta by dropping subtle false hints about what Psychohistory foresees, leading to the Junta making unpopular decisions. However, an agent of the Junta inside Seldon's team, having deduced that Dors is a robot, builds a device that ultimately kills her, leaving Seldon heartbroken. Years later, Seldon discovers that his granddaughter Wanda has telepathic abilities and begins searching for others like her but fails. Raych eventually decides to move his family to the planet Santanni, but Wanda chooses to remain with her elderly grandfather. However, just after they arrive a rebellion breaks out on the planet and Raych is killed in the fighting. His wife and child are lost when their ship disappears. Seldon eventually finds Stettin Palver, another telepath who becomes Wanda's husband and the pair are eventually instrumental in creating the Second Foundation.
Seldon mentions two indigenous species of Helicon: the lamec and the greti. The first is a hardworking animal, while the latter is dangerous as indicated by the native Helicon saying "If you ride a greti, you find you can't get off; for then it will eat you." The saying is similar to the age-old Chinese proverb "He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount" , and the words lamec and greti are anagrams of camel and tiger, respectively.
In his old age, he gains the nickname Raven for his dire predictions of the future.
*
171.The Seldon Plan.
The Seldon Plan is the central theme of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of stories and novels. The plan involves understanding the social sciences so well that the future of the Galactic Empire can be improved.
Psychohistory.
According to Asimov's novels, Hari Seldon devised the Seldon Plan using a mathematical analysis he originally developed and called psychohistory. Psychohistory is a fictional science which combines history, sociology, etc., and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. His analysis worked only for large numbers of persons, at least 50 billion, pursuing their idiosyncratic life interests, uninterested in shaping future history, and gave probable paths for historical developments. Using this technique, Seldon deduced that it was certain the Galactic Empire was about to collapse, and usher in 30,000 years of barbarism.
Plan outline.
The basic concept behind the plan, was initially stated to be to reduce 30,000 years of Galactic barbarism, to under 1,000, and establish a Second Galactic Empire. This appears to have been the original version of the plan. Not because Seldon did not have wider aspirations, but because that was as far as it was originally worked out by Seldon himself.
Plan methodology.
Seldon obtained permission from the Emperor, via the Commission of Public Safety, to start an Encyclopedia project, on a resource-poor planet towards the outer edges of the Galaxy. This project, which he called "The Foundation," was to face a series of crises, each of which would force the Foundation to take a particular path. For example, a scarcity of metals forced the Foundation to co-operate and trade with neighbors. Each time a major crisis happened, a projection of Seldon would appear, and make comments on the situation that had just passed. It was during the first of these crises that Seldon revealed the real purpose of the Foundation, which was to create the Second Galactic Empire.
Second Foundation.
As the novels progress, the reader learns more of the Second Foundation, composed of mental rather than physical scientists. These Second Foundationers have the power to manipulate minds, to shape the course of the development of the First Foundation (often referred to simply as the Foundation). This leads to strife between the two Foundations, as seen in Second Foundation.
Evolution of the plan.
The Second Foundation agent Chanis states, on page 78, in Second Foundation:
"So he (Seldon) created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even these laws were relative. He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution."
In Chapter 8, we get more details on how the Second Foundation maintain the plan, a complex series of mathematical models, kept in the "Prime Radiant."
"The Seldon plan is neither complete nor correct. Instead, it is merely the best that could be done at the time. Over a dozen generations of men have pored over these equations, worked at them, taken them apart to the last decimal place, and put them together again."
In this chapter the wider scope of the plan is revealed to the reader, and it is stated the purpose of the Second Galactic Empire, will be to accept a ruling class populated from the mental scientists of the Second Foundation. Without control of emotion, the models show all Galactic Empires will ultimately fail and fall, regardless of the level of their technology.
Mathematical modelling.
The Seldon Plan is statistical in nature. Future events are described as being probabilities. The variables, as discussed (see above) require a very large number of human beings, literally the population of the Galaxy, in order to reduce the ordinarily random events concerning human affairs to become amenable to statistical modelling.
Seldon's original address at the Decennial Convention on Trantor in 11,178 G.E. was his proof, using the irreducibility theorem (or First Seldon Theorem) that the population of the people of the galaxy fell just short of being a dynamic system which would be impossible to model adequately mathematically, the definition of 'just' most likely being one order of magnitude, though this is not discussed within the novels. At the time of this discovery, Seldon was not yet sure of either the scope or time constraints required to develop this discovery further.
Initially, Seldon was unable to make any headway on developing the model, as he was attempting to bring knowledge of all Galactic History, as well as considering all of the Galactic Population into modelling. Inadequate history and news reporting in the 12th millennium G.E. hindered his progress during his first year on Trantor, particularly during the period known as 'The Flight'.
After some consideration, at the end of the period of 'The Flight', Seldon realised that Trantor and its attendant worlds constituted an 'Empire In Miniature' on which he might model the past and future course of the Empire. Events in the rest of the Empire could be effectively modelled as second-order effects. Seldon often described this breakthrough as being 'the result of a turn of phrase' he encountered during The Flight.
During Seldon's lifetime, congruent points in the Plan were developed and modeled with enough accuracy to determine the critical points of inflexure that would set the Galaxy on the path of Foundation, and the Second Empire. In order to ensure that the First Foundation would be created, Seldon and the Psychohistorians of Trantor placed the Commissioner Linge Chen (then actual if not crowned Emperor) under intense scrutiny, as well as Mentalic influence in order to achieve their aims. This was a clear but vital breach in the limits of psychohistorical theory, as psychostatistics is meaningful only with planetary numbers, and not with individuals.
Thereafter, refinement in mathematical modelling saw the development of specialists with Seldon's group of Psychohistorians, now the nascent Second Foundation. Specialisations mentioned include:
Psychohistorian
Psychostatistical Technician
Observer
Proctor
Librarian
The Foundation also developed an Assembly, which was not a feature of its early days.
The Seldon Plan was never, even from its start, kept stored in any form of paper, as the mathematics was expressed not as simple equations, but of necessity as a dynamic process model. Computer technology allowed the development of the Prime Radiant, which permits not only observation of mathematics, associated papers, and related data in multi-dimensional dynamic displays, but also permits inclusion of changes, improvements, and modifications of the Plan. The Prime Radiant has had offshoot technologies to improve mathematical modelling, including the mini-radiant, which allows Speakers access to the Plan in private, for the purposes of refinement. Mini-radiants are able to access the Prime Radiants containing the Plan in real-time across radio data-networks.
Threats to the plan.
The plan came close to failure in Foundation and Empire because of the mutant called The Mule. Because the Mule had psychic powers of mind control, he did not fit the model of interactions psychohistory was based upon. The Mule could influence men at a distance, unlike Second Foundation agents, who required eye contact. The Mule was eventually lured to a remote planet to destroy the Second Foundation. However, in so doing, he left his main fleet, which was turned against him by Second Foundation agents in his absence, thus ending his rule.
Plan development.
In Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth, the reader, as well as certain characters in the novels, learns of another world called Gaia, a planet of humans who all share a collective consciousness. Strangely, they seem to be fostering the Seldon Plan similarly to the Second Foundation. However, they seem to have a much more subtle, and complex, understanding of the final nature of the Seldon Plan. In fact, the "eternal" robot, R. Daneel Olivaw, created Gaia as a parallel plan (he influenced Seldon's Plan) that was hidden from Hari Seldon and even from the Second Foundation.
Plan consistency.
Finding a complete canonical reference for the Plan is difficult. Asimov admitted that he wrote the last two novels due to reader demand, and not from a predetermined plan or vision. Thus, he may have made significant changes to his original vision, as set forth in the Foundation trilogy. He also made efforts in Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth to tie the books into his Robot and Empire series. This can, at least somewhat, account for some of the discrepancies that the reader finds in the literary development of the plan. Eventually, the Seldon plan was abandoned in favor of the giant super organism Galaxia, also known as Gaia. However, later works by other authors suggest that the great second empire could be a powerful combination of the two possibilities.
In the end of Foundation and Earth, the main character, Golan Trevize, explains that psychohistory had a flaw, that it didn't apply for humaniform robots like R. Daneel Olivaw, Gaians like Bliss and the Mule and more like them. Also, Trevize says that, the only smart life beings are humans, and if other life beings attacked them, humans wouldn't be united to defeat them. If it was Galaxia, every planet would be united. With this message, all of Asimov's books have a chronological ending, and it seems that humans have universal peace now.
*
Inglish Site.69.
*
TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
***
In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
*
Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
*
This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
*
Index.
169.Artemisia.
170.Hari Seldon.
171.The Seldon Plan.
*
169.Artemisia /??rt??mi?zi?/ is a large, diverse genus of plants with between 200 and 400 species belonging to the daisy family Asteraceae. Common names for various species in the genus include mugwort, wormwood, and sagebrush. Artemisia comprises hardy herbaceous plants and shrubs, which are known for the powerful chemical constituents in their essential oils. Artemisia species grow in temperate climates of both hemispheres, usually in dry or semiarid habitats. Notable species include A. vulgaris (common mugwort), A. tridentata (big sagebrush), A. annua (sagewort), A. absinthium (wormwood), A. dracunculus (tarragon), and A. abrotanum (southernwood). The leaves of many species are covered with white hairs.
Most species have strong aromas and bitter tastes from terpenoids and sesquiterpene lactones, which discourage herbivory, and may have had a selective advantage.
Plant terpenoids are used extensively for their aromatic qualities. They play a role in traditional herbal remedies and are under investigation for antibacterial, antineoplastic, and other pharmaceutical functions.
Sesquiterpene lactones are a class of chemical compounds; they are sesquiterpenoids (built from three isoprene units) and contain a lactone ring, hence the name. They are found in many plants and can cause allergic reactions and toxicity if overdosed, particularly in grazing livestock.
Types of sesquiterpene lactones.
Structures of some sesquiterpene lactones:
A: Germacranolides, B: Heliangolides, C+D: Guaianolides, E: Pseudoguaianolides, F: Hypocretenolides, G: Eudesmanolides.
Sesquiterpene lactones can be divided into several main classes including germacranolides, heliangolides, guaianolides, pseudoguaianolides, hypocretenolides, and eudesmanolides.
The small flowers are wind-pollinated. Artemisia species are used as food plants by the larvae of a number of Lepidoptera species.
Some botanists split the genus into several genera, but DNA analysis does not support the maintenance of the genera Crossostephium, Filifolium, Neopallasia, Seriphidium, and Sphaeromeria; three other segregate genera Stilnolepis, Elachanthemum, and Kaschgaria, are maintained by this evidence. Occasionally, some of the species are called sages, causing confusion with the Salvia sages in the family Lamiaceae.
Name.
The name "artemisia" ultimately derives from the Greek goddess Artemis (Roman Diana), the namesake of Greek Queens Artemisia I and II. A more specific reference may be to Artemisia II of Caria, a botanist and medical researcher who died in 350 BC.
Cultivation and uses.
The aromatic leaves of some species are used for flavouring. Most species have an extremely bitter taste. A. dracunculus (tarragon) is widely used as a culinary herb, particularly important in French cuisine.
Artemisia absinthium (absinth wormwood) was used to repel fleas and moths, and in brewing (wormwood beer, wormwood wine). The aperitif vermouth (derived from the German word Wermut, "wormwood") is a wine flavored with aromatic herbs, but originally with wormwood. The highly potent spirits absinthe and Malört also contain wormwood.
*
170.Hari Seldon.
Hari Seldon is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on Trantor, Seldon develops psychohistory, allowing him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. His prediction of the eventual fall of the Galactic Empire is the reason behind his nickname "Raven" Seldon.
In the first five books of the Foundation series, Hari Seldon made only one in-the-flesh appearance, in the first chapter of the first book (Foundation), although he did appear other times in pre-recorded messages to reveal a Seldon Crisis. After writing five books in chronological order, Asimov went back with two books to better describe the initial process. The two prequels?Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation?describe his life in considerable detail. He is also the central character of the Second Foundation Trilogy written after Asimov's death (Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear, and Foundation's Triumph by David Brin), which are set after Asimov's two prequels.
Galactic Empire First Minister and psychohistorian Hari Seldon was born in the 10th month of the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era (GE) (-79 Foundation Era (FE)) and died 12,069 GE (1 FE). (In Asimov's saga, the Galactic Era begins when the Galactic Empire is founded at an unknown date roughly 11,000 years in the future: the timeline can be deduced from some hints Asimov dropped in his other science fiction works, including the Robot and Empire series.)
He was born on the planet Helicon in the Arcturus sector where his father worked as a tobacco grower in a hydroponics plant.
He shows incredible mathematical abilities at a very early age. He also learns martial arts on Helicon that later help him on Trantor, the principal art being Heliconian Twisting (a form seemingly equal parts Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, and Submission Wrestling). Helicon is said to be "less notable for its mathematics, and more for its martial arts" (Prelude to Foundation). Seldon is awarded a Ph.D. in mathematics for his work on turbulence at the University of Helicon. There he becomes an assistant professor specializing in the mathematical analysis of social structures.:p. 73 :p. 76
Seldon is the subject of a biography by Gaal Dornick. Seldon is Emperor Cleon I's second and last First Minister, the first being Eto Demerzel/R. Daneel Olivaw. He is deposed as First Minister after Cleon I's assassination.
Seldon, Hari? . . . found dead, slumped over desk in his office at Streeling University in 12,069 (1 F.E.). Apparently Seldon had been working up to his last moments on psychohistorical equations; his activated Prime Radiant was discovered clutched in hand. According to Seldon?s instructions, the instrument was shipped by his colleague Gaal Dornick who had recently emigrated to Terminus. Seldon's body was jettisoned into space, also in accordance with instructions he?d left. The official memorial service on Trantor was simple, though attended. It was worth noting that Seldon?s old friend former First Minister Eto Demerzel attended the event. Demerzel had not been seen since his mysterious disappearance immediately following the Joranumite Conspiracy during the reign of Emperor Cleon I. Attempts by the Commission of Public Safety to locate Demerzel in the days following the Seldon memorial proved to be unsuccessful. Wanda Seldon, Hari Seldon?s granddaughter, did not attend the ceremony. It was rumored that she was grief-stricken and had refused all public appearances. To this day, her whereabouts from then on remain unknown. It has been said that Hari Seldon left this life as lived it, for he died with the future he created unfolding all around him.
?Encyclopedia Galactica
Using psychohistory, Seldon mathematically determines what he calls The Seldon Plan?a plan to determine the right time and place to set up a new society, one that would replace the collapsing Galactic Empire by sheer force of social pressure, but over only a thousand-year time span, rather than the ten-to-thirty-thousand-year time span that would normally have been required, and thus reduce the human suffering from living in a time of barbarism. The Foundation is placed on Terminus, a resource-poor planet entirely populated by scientists and their families. The planet?or so Seldon claimed?was originally occupied to create the Encyclopedia Galactica, a vast compilation of the knowledge of a dying galactic empire. In reality, Terminus had a much larger role in his Plan, which larger role he had to conceal from its inhabitants at first.
Seldon visits Trantor to attend the Decennial Mathematics Convention. He presents a paper which indicates that one could theoretically predict the Galactic Empire's future. He is able to show that Galactic society can be represented in a simulation simpler than itself (in a finite number of iterations before the onset of chaotic noise smears discerning sets of events). :p. 148 He does so using a technique invented that past century. At first, Seldon has no idea how this could be done in practice, and he is fairly confident that no one could actually fulfill the possibility. Shortly after his presentation, he becomes a lightning rod for political forces who want to use psychohistory for their own purposes. The rest of the novel tells of his flight, which lasts for approximately a year and which takes him through the complex and variegated world of Trantor. During his flight to escape the various political factions, he discovers how psychohistory can be made a practical science. It is in this novel that he meets his future wife Dors Venabili, future adopted son Raych Seldon, and future partner Yugo Amaryl.
This novel is actually told as a sequence of short stories, just as was the case with the original trilogy. They take place at intervals a decade or more apart, and tell the story of Hari's life, starting about ten years after Prelude and ending with his death. The stories contrast his increasingly successful professional life with his increasingly unsuccessful personal life.
Seldon becomes involved in politics when Eto Demerzel becomes a target for a smear campaign conducted by Laskin Joranum. He eventually takes Demerzel's place as First Minister, despite his reluctance to divide his attention between government and the development of Psychohistory. His career comes to an end when Cleon I is assassinated by his gardener (a random event Seldon could not have predicted) and the seizure of power by a military junta. Seldon eventually causes the fall of the junta by dropping subtle false hints about what Psychohistory foresees, leading to the Junta making unpopular decisions. However, an agent of the Junta inside Seldon's team, having deduced that Dors is a robot, builds a device that ultimately kills her, leaving Seldon heartbroken. Years later, Seldon discovers that his granddaughter Wanda has telepathic abilities and begins searching for others like her but fails. Raych eventually decides to move his family to the planet Santanni, but Wanda chooses to remain with her elderly grandfather. However, just after they arrive a rebellion breaks out on the planet and Raych is killed in the fighting. His wife and child are lost when their ship disappears. Seldon eventually finds Stettin Palver, another telepath who becomes Wanda's husband and the pair are eventually instrumental in creating the Second Foundation.
Seldon mentions two indigenous species of Helicon: the lamec and the greti. The first is a hardworking animal, while the latter is dangerous as indicated by the native Helicon saying "If you ride a greti, you find you can't get off; for then it will eat you." The saying is similar to the age-old Chinese proverb "He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount" , and the words lamec and greti are anagrams of camel and tiger, respectively.
In his old age, he gains the nickname Raven for his dire predictions of the future.
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171.The Seldon Plan.
The Seldon Plan is the central theme of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of stories and novels. The plan involves understanding the social sciences so well that the future of the Galactic Empire can be improved.
Psychohistory.
According to Asimov's novels, Hari Seldon devised the Seldon Plan using a mathematical analysis he originally developed and called psychohistory. Psychohistory is a fictional science which combines history, sociology, etc., and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. His analysis worked only for large numbers of persons, at least 50 billion, pursuing their idiosyncratic life interests, uninterested in shaping future history, and gave probable paths for historical developments. Using this technique, Seldon deduced that it was certain the Galactic Empire was about to collapse, and usher in 30,000 years of barbarism.
Plan outline.
The basic concept behind the plan, was initially stated to be to reduce 30,000 years of Galactic barbarism, to under 1,000, and establish a Second Galactic Empire. This appears to have been the original version of the plan. Not because Seldon did not have wider aspirations, but because that was as far as it was originally worked out by Seldon himself.
Plan methodology.
Seldon obtained permission from the Emperor, via the Commission of Public Safety, to start an Encyclopedia project, on a resource-poor planet towards the outer edges of the Galaxy. This project, which he called "The Foundation," was to face a series of crises, each of which would force the Foundation to take a particular path. For example, a scarcity of metals forced the Foundation to co-operate and trade with neighbors. Each time a major crisis happened, a projection of Seldon would appear, and make comments on the situation that had just passed. It was during the first of these crises that Seldon revealed the real purpose of the Foundation, which was to create the Second Galactic Empire.
Second Foundation.
As the novels progress, the reader learns more of the Second Foundation, composed of mental rather than physical scientists. These Second Foundationers have the power to manipulate minds, to shape the course of the development of the First Foundation (often referred to simply as the Foundation). This leads to strife between the two Foundations, as seen in Second Foundation.
Evolution of the plan.
The Second Foundation agent Chanis states, on page 78, in Second Foundation:
"So he (Seldon) created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even these laws were relative. He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution."
In Chapter 8, we get more details on how the Second Foundation maintain the plan, a complex series of mathematical models, kept in the "Prime Radiant."
"The Seldon plan is neither complete nor correct. Instead, it is merely the best that could be done at the time. Over a dozen generations of men have pored over these equations, worked at them, taken them apart to the last decimal place, and put them together again."
In this chapter the wider scope of the plan is revealed to the reader, and it is stated the purpose of the Second Galactic Empire, will be to accept a ruling class populated from the mental scientists of the Second Foundation. Without control of emotion, the models show all Galactic Empires will ultimately fail and fall, regardless of the level of their technology.
Mathematical modelling.
The Seldon Plan is statistical in nature. Future events are described as being probabilities. The variables, as discussed (see above) require a very large number of human beings, literally the population of the Galaxy, in order to reduce the ordinarily random events concerning human affairs to become amenable to statistical modelling.
Seldon's original address at the Decennial Convention on Trantor in 11,178 G.E. was his proof, using the irreducibility theorem (or First Seldon Theorem) that the population of the people of the galaxy fell just short of being a dynamic system which would be impossible to model adequately mathematically, the definition of 'just' most likely being one order of magnitude, though this is not discussed within the novels. At the time of this discovery, Seldon was not yet sure of either the scope or time constraints required to develop this discovery further.
Initially, Seldon was unable to make any headway on developing the model, as he was attempting to bring knowledge of all Galactic History, as well as considering all of the Galactic Population into modelling. Inadequate history and news reporting in the 12th millennium G.E. hindered his progress during his first year on Trantor, particularly during the period known as 'The Flight'.
After some consideration, at the end of the period of 'The Flight', Seldon realised that Trantor and its attendant worlds constituted an 'Empire In Miniature' on which he might model the past and future course of the Empire. Events in the rest of the Empire could be effectively modelled as second-order effects. Seldon often described this breakthrough as being 'the result of a turn of phrase' he encountered during The Flight.
During Seldon's lifetime, congruent points in the Plan were developed and modeled with enough accuracy to determine the critical points of inflexure that would set the Galaxy on the path of Foundation, and the Second Empire. In order to ensure that the First Foundation would be created, Seldon and the Psychohistorians of Trantor placed the Commissioner Linge Chen (then actual if not crowned Emperor) under intense scrutiny, as well as Mentalic influence in order to achieve their aims. This was a clear but vital breach in the limits of psychohistorical theory, as psychostatistics is meaningful only with planetary numbers, and not with individuals.
Thereafter, refinement in mathematical modelling saw the development of specialists with Seldon's group of Psychohistorians, now the nascent Second Foundation. Specialisations mentioned include:
Psychohistorian
Psychostatistical Technician
Observer
Proctor
Librarian
The Foundation also developed an Assembly, which was not a feature of its early days.
The Seldon Plan was never, even from its start, kept stored in any form of paper, as the mathematics was expressed not as simple equations, but of necessity as a dynamic process model. Computer technology allowed the development of the Prime Radiant, which permits not only observation of mathematics, associated papers, and related data in multi-dimensional dynamic displays, but also permits inclusion of changes, improvements, and modifications of the Plan. The Prime Radiant has had offshoot technologies to improve mathematical modelling, including the mini-radiant, which allows Speakers access to the Plan in private, for the purposes of refinement. Mini-radiants are able to access the Prime Radiants containing the Plan in real-time across radio data-networks.
Threats to the plan.
The plan came close to failure in Foundation and Empire because of the mutant called The Mule. Because the Mule had psychic powers of mind control, he did not fit the model of interactions psychohistory was based upon. The Mule could influence men at a distance, unlike Second Foundation agents, who required eye contact. The Mule was eventually lured to a remote planet to destroy the Second Foundation. However, in so doing, he left his main fleet, which was turned against him by Second Foundation agents in his absence, thus ending his rule.
Plan development.
In Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth, the reader, as well as certain characters in the novels, learns of another world called Gaia, a planet of humans who all share a collective consciousness. Strangely, they seem to be fostering the Seldon Plan similarly to the Second Foundation. However, they seem to have a much more subtle, and complex, understanding of the final nature of the Seldon Plan. In fact, the "eternal" robot, R. Daneel Olivaw, created Gaia as a parallel plan (he influenced Seldon's Plan) that was hidden from Hari Seldon and even from the Second Foundation.
Plan consistency.
Finding a complete canonical reference for the Plan is difficult. Asimov admitted that he wrote the last two novels due to reader demand, and not from a predetermined plan or vision. Thus, he may have made significant changes to his original vision, as set forth in the Foundation trilogy. He also made efforts in Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth to tie the books into his Robot and Empire series. This can, at least somewhat, account for some of the discrepancies that the reader finds in the literary development of the plan. Eventually, the Seldon plan was abandoned in favor of the giant super organism Galaxia, also known as Gaia. However, later works by other authors suggest that the great second empire could be a powerful combination of the two possibilities.
In the end of Foundation and Earth, the main character, Golan Trevize, explains that psychohistory had a flaw, that it didn't apply for humaniform robots like R. Daneel Olivaw, Gaians like Bliss and the Mule and more like them. Also, Trevize says that, the only smart life beings are humans, and if other life beings attacked them, humans wouldn't be united to defeat them. If it was Galaxia, every planet would be united. With this message, all of Asimov's books have a chronological ending, and it seems that humans have universal peace now.
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