Late morning. You are waiting for Herb from Handyman Connection to come fix the squirrel’s entrance to the attic. This time you are using wire as well as wood. Yesterday, a former student, Eric G., gave you an idea as he had written you a note mentioning Hari Seldon, a fictional character from Asimov’s Foundation series. You wondered aloud to him how it would be to have such a character in HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. From Wikipedia you have found and slightly edited the following material:
Hari Seldon, a fictional character, is the intellectual hero of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on Trantor, he developed 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 "The Raven" Seldon.
Psychohistory is a fictional science which combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make (nearly) exact predictions of the collective actions of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. It was first introduced in the five short stories (1942-1944) which would later be collected as the 1951 novel Foundation.
Axioms
Psychohistory depends on the idea that, while one cannot foresee the actions of a particular individual, the laws of statistics as applied to large groups of people could predict the general flow of future events. Asimov used the analogy of a gas: an observer has great difficulty in predicting the motion of a single molecule in a gas, but can predict the mass action of the gas to a high level of accuracy. (Physicists know this as the Kinetic theory.) Asimov applied this concept to the population of his fictional Galactic Empire, which numbered a quintillion. The character responsible for the science's creation, Hari Seldon, established two axioms:
that the population whose behaviour was modeled should be sufficiently large
that the population should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses
There is a third underlying axiom of Psychohistory, which is trivial and thus not stated by Seldon in his Plan:
that Human Beings are the only sentient intelligence in the Galaxy.
The above is excerpted from Wikipedia
***
You taught book one of the series, Foundation, as an introduction to your Futures Studies/Science Fiction class at Indian Hill in the seventies and early eighties. To you Hari Seldon was the master fictional hero of Futures Studies in real life. Hari predicted eight Seldon Crises in the series that were resolved with one action.
Again, from Wikipedia, a definition:
A Seldon Crisis is a fictional socio-historical phenomenon. They are part of the field of psychohistory, and refer to a social and political situation that, to be successfully surmounted, would eventually leave only one possible, inevitable, course of action.
They are named after Hari Seldon, who founded the field of psychohistory, and who appears as a pre-recorded hologram at the climax of each crisis. Before his death, he used psychohistory to predict and manipulate each event. A Seldon Crisis usually involves both an external pressure (such as threat of attack) and an internal pressure (such as threat of revolt). Both pressures will come to a head simultaneously, and be resolved with the same action. Edited from Wikipedia
***
The concept and follow-through of a Seldon Crisis is one of the most profound pieces of literature that I have ever read. Rather than serendipity (luck and coincidence) Hari creates a situation where luck has little to do with it, and what is thought of as an event of coincidence is a socio, political, religious, and economic manipulation to allow people to better survive a crisis of power or lack of it, and live more peacefully and humanly. That was and is my take on the subject.
This, orndorff, is what is being done through the Merlyn books.
I cannot imagine such a thing.
Of course not. Lay the books out and see if there is not a truth in what I say here. – Amorella.
That would be too much trouble, too much time. Let’s just say, “I have my doubts that such a concept follows through the Merlyn books.”
That, my friend, is the thinking that allows me to write six books rather than the original three you charted (Stuck, Home, On Earth). All for now. Post. – Amorella.
A piece of leftover pizza for lunch. You have the material gathered from the basement for help in controlling the squirrels from entrance. Herb should be here within an hour or so. You and Carol are both still fighting a common cold and are physically worn from it.
It is not that bad, Amorella. How embarrassing of you to suggest such a thing. Okay, I am feeling bad about having a cold but so what, people feel bad about lot worse things in life. Lord, give me a break here.
Do not erase, boy. Thoughts on paper, that’s what you wanted.
I don’t like using ‘Lord’ here. I hardly ever say it even in this context.
You imply it more than you think. It is like OMG, orndorff. Mostly cultural, though you are trying to be polite in this blog. Even one of your long-standing friends, Alta B., who has read all your notes and books, said, while on the trip into Michigan, “[The blog] is less honest than your [earlier] notes.”
She did say that or its equivalent, then went on to add that ‘the blog is for a different audience.’ It bothers my conscious some because it is a true statement on her part. I don’t know how to rectify it. I don’t like to think I am writing for an audience other than myself and those same close friends and their spouses who are mentioned at the beginning of book three. What it comes down to is my desire to remain ‘authentic’ in purpose and style whether notes or books. These are the matters that are the most important to me. I want my inner ‘centeredness’ to show through. That’s my point. I would hope it is consistent, but perhaps it is not. Such is life.
Post for now. Time to work on home economics on the computer. Real life. Economics. – Amorella.
The handyman is working. We completed all the check transactions for the last month and a half. I’m glad Carol is in charge of the finances as she is much more focused on numbers than I am. I notice that in my fictional Elysium there is no word of economics of any kind, that is other than living with one’s self and others, or at least that is how it seems. No wonder it’s fiction. I cannot imagine a real HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither not having some sort of economics as it seems to be built into our humanity into our concepts of order and balance as well as fairness and justice. Hmm. And our senses of equality and hierarchy and power.
Politics of the U.S. today slant towards liberal socialists on the left and capitalistic tea partiers on the right. And, that doesn’t include the various religious persuasions in our culture. The closest thing to an actual Seldon Crisis (in my mind) was the end of the Soviet Union. I would hope it doesn’t come to that in our country, but if it did I would not be surprised.
You hesitate but here is what you are thinking without much articulation. “Individual freedom has become a kind of sacred deity.”
I would just as soon not see this as a thought.
Why?
Because it does not help me to think such things. I gain nothing from it, and it is not provable in any case. Pure opinion, and I don’t put much stake in opinions.
In the books the Dead have an economic system based on a sense of righteousness. (Notice I did not say self-righteousness.) – Amorella.
I need to see the dictionary here.
Righteousness: 1 : acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin
2 a : morally right or justifiable *a righteous decision* b : arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality *righteous indignation. [From Merriam-Webster]
2 a : morally right or justifiable *a righteous decision* b : arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality *righteous indignation. [From Merriam-Webster]
***
Uh, this is making me uncomfortable.
Why? You cannot have the books' ‘Rebellion’ without it.
I would as soon avoid the subject directly so as to avoid appearing self-righteous, that is, in my pursuing such a subject.
Satire is your game, orndorff. What do you expect, boy?
Indignation. That is what my satire rises from.
So, why not admit the truth?
I do not feel worthy to have as much indignation as you are suggesting. This is a highly uncomfortable subject for me to think on, Amorella.
I have said this before, “You are arrogant.”
I intend for this blog to remain respectful and polite.
I am referring to the Merlyn books directly not to any notes.
I need a break from this.
Post, and take one, orndorff. Meanwhile, you have to live with who you are. These things need taken into personal account. – Amorella.
***
***
Scene Six
Ezekiel’s inner light diffracted at his edge of consciousness. A single ray quietly plunged into his mind as a sunbeam may break through the surface of water.
Surprised, Ezekiel suddenly consciously pronounced, ‘Who is the least angelic-like of all my dead friends? And then he declared, ‘That is who I most wish to see.’
The shadows of this scattered thought felt as shades of dispersed bubbles of mind dictating matter. ‘I wish for G-D himself,’ uncommonly came to pass between the dark balloon-minded chimera below and the inner light above.
As Ezekiel had not just wished for G-D, his consciousness froze at the thought.
What came next was an event-in-mind that Ezekiel or anyone else could not have expected in either life or death.
It is the beginning and my spine shivers. I am inside and there is no way out. This is the reason my forearms shiver. I am non-thought. My fingers are cold and I am ice forming on the Great River. I am a floating icy continuity of uncommon ground. I am Ezekiel dancing . . . I am namelessness dancing . . . I am as a string of poetic devices – dancing. No-thing.
h-e-r-e
To exist and not to exist at once. Unthreaded and detached logic scurries off on the tails of nonlinear un-dotted explanation points. To exist and not to exist. A dash of one and a zero. A dash of zero and a one.
To this Ezekiel thinks, ‘I do not to exist and am able to reflect on this fact at the same time. This is the bottom line of being Dead. The top line is that the righteous will be reunited with their loved ones, that is the spirit of the words.’
***
Takis caught hold in Thales’ heart and antenna-like directed Ezekiel’s words indirectly from himself to Thales . . . “the spirit of the words,” entered Takis’s mind from soul or heart, Takis knew not which. Reunited, thought Takis, the Dead and the Living. What appears to be a one way street need not be. If the Living can come to the Dead, then the Dead can return to the Living. But first the Dead must return to the centeredness of our Mother’s heart. It is the heart not the soul or mind that brings the Dead together. We shamans have focused on the rhythms of the soul not the turbulence in the heart. One does not dance to a rebellion, one drives a rebellion with righteous indignation.
[End of scene six for the present]
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