XPost: alt.fan.tolkien, rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis   
   From: dthierbach@usenet.arcornews.de   
      
   Dirk Thierbach  wrote:   
   > Öjevind Lång  wrote:   
   >> "Dirk Thierbach"  skrev i meddelandet   
      
   >>>> 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").   
      
   >>> I always imagined that similar to thermodynamics: You have lots of   
   >>> particles moving completely randomly, but nevertheless one can assign   
   >>> properties to the complete ensemble like pressure or temperature which   
   >>> obey rather strict laws.   
      
   >> Yes, but a lot of particles moving at random are only one category of   
   >> phenomena; in psyhohistory, you'd have to process population statistics,   
   >> economical facts and forecasts [etc.]   
      
   > Yes, of course. I didn't say that psychohistory is easy, or actually   
   > possible.   
      
   BTW, these TED talks   
      
   http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_v   
   _ever_seen.html   
   http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html   
      
   have a nice visualization that shows that even with very simple data   
   (child mortality and GPD per capita) one can make predictions about   
   the speed of development of "Third World" countries. Of course that's not   
   the same as a complete working theory of psychohistory, but I think it   
   gives a taste of what it could look like.   
      
   Worth watching not only for this reason, Hand Rosling is a very   
   entertaining speaker.   
      
   - Dirk   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)