Foundation

A central idea of Foundation is that science may someday be able to predict the future well enough to guide societies through crises. For Hari Seldon, the purpose of such predictions is to save human civilization, and his new science of psychohistory attempts to do just that. Two major problems stand in the way of such a project: how to accurately predict the actions of huge populations, and how to account for individual agents who may later jeopardize the accuracy of those predictions by altering the course of history. These problems are defined by the sociological theory of the uncertainty principle, which posits that a self-aware population becomes unpredictable because awareness of a potential future allows individuals to alter their course of action, rendering initial predictions inaccurate. Seldon resolves the threat of the uncertainty principle to his centuries-long plan with a single, ongoing solution: limiting the possible actions of future actors.

Hari Seldon’s science of psychohistory solves the first, more technical problem of how to predict the future accurately. He addresses this puzzle by ignoring the influence of individuals, who are highly unpredictable, and focusing on masses of humans, whose future behavior can be calculated much more precisely. Crises that will arise decades in the future get resolved not through the brilliant actions of individual leaders, but by those leaders standing aside and letting large social forces do the work they’ve been predicted to do. Through this strategy, Asimov explores the cyclical nature of empire, civilization, and periods of human culture. He suggests that the best indication of how the future will unfold is the history of similar mass civilizational developments. Therefore, the job of Foundation overseers is not to alter history but to inject small amounts of technology cleverly into planetary societies and let high tech work its wonders and move those planets toward the prosperity that will allow them to remain in contact.

Hardin remarks, “To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well” (178). Asimov explores how improvisational thinking is vital to leadership, as Terminus mayor’s often state that the best plan is to have no plan at all. However, through characters like Sef Sermak and Jorane Sutt, Asimov exemplifies how individual choice might change the future. Seldon accounts for this by making subtle changes to his own actions while creating the Foundation to force future to choose the one “obvious” path. He inhibits self-awareness by preventing psychologists, those who study human behavior, from inhabiting the Foundation. As each Seldon Crisis arises during the story, the Foundation finds itself cornered by events and forced to act in the direction predicted by psychohistory.

Hari Seldon also avoids giving specific descriptions of future events, since people—even good-willed Foundation workers—might alter their behavior to take advantage of the future situation and thereby cause those events to shift, threatening Seldon’s forecasts. As the Foundation’s purpose becomes more widely known, the only logical choice of those aware of the purpose is to take advantage of it, which enhances Seldon’s Plan. Even so, the specifics of the future must remain hidden to all, lest they tempt people to act in ways that change that future and jeopardize civilization. Asimov suggests a moral dilemma inherent in Seldon’s work. The preservation of civilization is presented as an unambiguous good, yet over the course of the five stories in the book, the Foundation’s leaders shift from secretive-yet-altruistic scholars to self-interested capitalists. Seldon’s plan suggests that all historical cycles of human civilization are necessary, immutable, and therefore desirable. He does not critique civilizational cycles, only seeks to artificially catalyze them.

Regardless of its moral positioning, Seldon’s psychohistorical work solves the problem of historical drift by keeping his predictions secret and by taking small initial steps that limit future possibilities and narrow history into the channel that supposedly best serves civilization and humanity.