XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: bredband.net@ojevind.lang   
      
   "Troels Forchhammer"  skrev i meddelandet   
   news:Xns9C636AE12BF27T.Forch@147.243.252.16...   
   > In message    
   > Öjevind Lång  spoke these staves:   
      
   > I'd like to think that he would acknowledge that I am right, though.   
   > Science has moved on since he wrote his first _Robot_ stories, or his   
   > first _Galactic Empire_ stories etc. and what might then have been at   
   > least remotely concievable has since been refuted. I'm not sure that   
   > his idea of hyperspace with reciprocal distances was actually   
   > concievable even when he first wrote about it; at least I think it was   
   > not considered a part of a theory in the same way as wormholes are   
   > considered a part of general relativity today (the question is whether   
   > they can be physically realized, not whether they are theoretically   
   > possible).   
      
   One idea that definitely didn't make sense even at the time was that one   
   could foresee the future if one only assembled enough facts   
   ("psychohistory"). That is utter rubbish, of course. How does one decide   
   which facts are relevant, and how are they to be processed? And when you   
   have assembled and analysed the data from one single planet, they would   
   already be obsolete or proved to be incorrect.   
      
   >> He loved thinking of himself as completely scientific or rational,   
   >> although of course he wasn't.   
   >   
   > None of us are, really. Asimov _was_ an excellent science writer and   
   > had a very good grasp of science, but there are certainly elements in   
   > his stories that must be seen as unscientific and irrational. In the   
   > _Foundation_ books there's the whole matter of the emotion-control and   
   > the planet-wide collective consciousness -- despite any of his attempts   
   > to rationalize these, they both, IMO, approach an element of magic   
   > rather than science.   
      
   Yes, the emotion control is a rather stupid, simplistic conception of   
   hypnotism - almost reminiscent of Mandrake. As for planet-wide   
   consciousness, he rather obviously fell victim to James Lovelock's Gaia   
   theory, which had quite a following at one point. Of course, Lovelock   
   himself was appalled by what his more extreme fans did to his theory; he   
   didn't mean to actually imply that a planetary "consciousness" was a sort of   
   person who thought and made decisions based on the conclusions arrived at.   
     Anyway, as I have said before, I think all Asimov's Foundation novels suck   
   except the first three.   
     As to his excellent grasp of science, I largely agree with you, but there   
   are some glaring exceptions from it. In the Foundation trilogy, he mentions   
   (with obvious approval) the capital planet of Trantor, which is completely   
   covered by metal buildings except for the huge park (several square miles)   
   surrounding the emperor's palace. How the devil would such a planet produce   
   oxygen for everyone? He could have introduced some contrived (not to say   
   unscientific) deus ex machina such as areas of huge oxygen-producin   
   machines, but clearly, it never even occurred to him that the Trantor he   
   describes is ludicrous. And then, of course, one can also wonder how they   
   managed to bring so much metal to Trantor and why they couldn't have used   
   some ordinary cement and the like for most buildings.   
      
   >> His worship of robots who would become surrogate gods and solve   
   >> our problems was defintiely not rational.   
   >   
   > ;-)   
   >   
   > Harsh, but true. The irony is that his robots are so entirely rational,   
   > and so they come to represent an irrational belief in the power for   
   > salvation of the rational.   
      
   Exactly. A vicious circle. He even wrote a short story about a thinking   
   machine which is all alone after entropy has done its work, and which (or   
   who) after carefully planning things out creates the universe anew by   
   saying: "Let there be light."   
      
   >>   All the same, he did enjoy LotR,   
   >   
   > And Tolkien enjoyed his stories.   
      
   Yes, it's nice to know it was reciprocal.   
      
   [snip]   
      
   >> as if he was afraid of otherwise cominf under suspicron of   
   >> beliveling in wizards, elves, hobbist and so on.   
   >   
   > Don't everybody?   
      
   I'm very afraid of cominf under suspicron of beliveling. ;-)   
      
   > And of course we all believe in Tyope :)   
      
   All hail to Tyope, our Muse!   
      
   Öjevind   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)