In Asimov’e classic “Foundation” series, the "Second Foundation was set up to keep civilization going, until the new galactic empire could emerge. The “Second Foundation” was governed by a group of super intellectual types, who nevertheless, required guidance from time to time. At these times of crisis (known as “Seldon Crises”), the leaders would go to a special hall, where Seldon’s “simulacrum” or image would emerge, and dispense wisdom to the leaders.
This harks back to the ancient Greek oracles, who were consulted by leaders.
My question, suppose we had a supercomputer, programmed with all the the latest economiic and political info, and hooked it up to an automaton (like the ones you see in Disneyworld’s “Hall of the Presidents”)-say we chose Franklin D. Roosevelt as the image-we could all see him on TV, and he would answer our concerns-would this give the people confidence?
Hari Seldon-care to comment?
IIRC, the Hari Seldon thing was simply a recording – it didn’t interact with people at the time.
As such, it’s certainly within the realm of what can be done today. It wouldn’t appear dignified as an audioanimatronic gizmo. I always imagined it as a projected image, possibly 3D. The 3D part isn’t currently possible without special glasses or lenticular screens, which would make it too much of a gimmick to be taken seriously, but we certainly have the ability to project an image.
I believe Cal’s right. It wasn’t interactive, it only gave the unsettling impression of such, because Seldon’s psychohistory gave him the ability to predict the Seldon Crisis(es) and have a prepared speech about it recorded for presentation at the correct time.
I also got the impression that it was a 3D hologram type recording, although I admit I don’t remember if Asimov actually wrote that it was in 3D or if my brain filled that in or if the cover art inspired that notion.
As covered in the books, anyone can make predictions, the trick is getting people to believe them. If you predict wrong more than once or twice, people stop listening, and psychohistory is toast as a tool. That’s why Seldon was so loathe to start making predictions before the math was solid, and even after they figured out the math, he was hesitant to release predictions to the public. Simply having people know the prediction alters behavior, making the prediction less likely to remain accurate. So while the leaders of the time wanted him to get up on stage and start making predictions (accurate or not) about their long and glorious careers and the greatness of their governments, thus calming the rabble, Seldon knew that wouldn’t work. I don’t see any reason why it still wouldn’t work. Sure, it might be fun to have an FDR simulacrum to ease our minds, but we don’t have the math of psychohistory to make predictions accurate, and even if we did, we couldn’t share them with the masses.
It was the First Foundation (or just the Foundation) that had the Time Vault containing the Seldon simacrulum BTW. The Seconders wouldn’t need it - they had the Seldon Plan itself available for study.
And it was purely a recording. Remember the part where they were waiting for it to talk about the war with Kalgan & the Mule, and it talked about the civil war that never happened instead?
Lenticular 3D is getting a lot better right around now, and a big tech company probably could make a one-off that was good enough for a non-gimmicky demonstration.
Aside from the predictions themselves, though, the bigger problem would probably be the longevity. Have you ever made electronic equipment that can last for five hundred years? Maybe, but there’s no way to know yet.
And to nitpick, it was the First Foundation that saw the recordings. The secret Second Foundation had more detailed info, and was continually tweaking things behind the scenes to make sure that history stayed on the track predicted in the recordings. In fact, it was after one of the predictions went wrong, but the next one was correct again, that the First Foundation realized that the Second was still around, because it would have been impossible for history to get back on the right track otherwise.
Hmmmm, it’s been years since I read the series, but I also recall it as a 3D recording of Seldon appearing to give his advise to the First Foundation folks.
As I recall the Second Foundation folks were the ones in the background nudging history so it stayed in synch with Seldon’s timeline.
ETA Muldonthief beat me to it.
Too late to edit:
The recordings weren’t even strictly necessary. IIRC no one showed up for the 3rd & 4th crises - this is mentioned by Ebling Mis when he’s studying the Time Vault to find when the next crisis will occur.