Read Online Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford - Free Book Online
Authors: Gregory Benford
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tax collectors, seeking “rural peace.”
But why did they do that spontaneously?
“People.” Hari sat up suddenly. “That’s what we’re missing.”
“Huh? You proved yourself—remember? the Reductionist Theorem?—that individuals don’t matter.”
“They don’t. But people do. Our coupled equations describe them in the mass, but we don’t know the critical drivers.”
“That’s all hidden, down in the data.”
“Maybe not. What if we were big spiders, instead of primates? Would psychohistory look the same?”
Yugo frowned. “Well…if the data were the same…”
“Data on trade, wars, population statistics? It wouldn’t matter whether we were counting spiders instead of people?”
Yugo shook his head, his face clouding, unwilling to concede a point that might topple years of work. “It’s gotta be there.”
“Your coming in here to get details of what the rich and famous do at their revels—where’s that in the equations?”
Yugo’s mouth twisted, irked now. “That stuff, it doesn’t matter. ”
“Who says?”
“Well, history—”
“Is written by the winners, true enough. But how do the great generals get men and women to march through freezing mud? When won’t they march?”
“Nobody knows.”
“We need to know. Or rather, the equations do.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go to the historians?”
Hari laughed. He shared Dors’ contempt for most of her profession. The current fashion in the study of the past was a matter of taste, not data.
He had once thought that history was simply a matter of grubbing in musty cyberfiles. Then, if Dors would show him how to track down data—whether encoded in ancient ferrite cylinders or polymer blocks or strandware— then he would have a firm basis for mathematics. Didn’t Dors and other historians simply add one more brick of knowledge to an ever-growing monument?
The current style, though, was to marshal the past into a preferred flavor. Factions fought over the antiquity, over “their” history vs. “ours.” Fringes flourished. The “spiral-centric” held that historical forces spread along spiral arms, whereas the “Hub-focused” maintained that the Galactic Center was the true mediating agency for causes, trends, movements, evolution. Technocrats contended with Naturals, who felt that innate human qualities drove change.
Among myriad facts and footnotes, specialists saw present politics mirrored in the past. As the presentfractured and transfigured, there seemed no point of reference outside history itself—an unreliable platform indeed, especially when one realized how many mysterious gaps there were in the records. All this seemed to Hari to be more fashion than foundation. There was no uncontested past.
What contained the centrifugal forces of relativism—let me have my viewpoint and you can have yours—was an arena of broad agreement. Most people generally held that the Empire was good, overall. That the long periods of stasis had been the best times, for change always cost someone. That above the competing throng, through the factions shouting what were essentially family stories at each other, there was worth in comprehending where humanity had passed, what it had done.
But there agreement stopped. Few seemed concerned with where humanity, or even the Empire, was going. He had come to suspect that the subject was ignored, in favor of your-history-against-mine, because most historians unconsciously dreaded the future. They sensed the decline in their souls and knew that over the horizon lay not yet another shift-then-stasis but a collapse.
“So what do we do?” Hari realized that Yugo had said this twice now. He had drifted off into reverie.
“I…don’t know.”
“Add another term for basic instincts?”
Hari shook his head. “People don’t run on instinct. But they do behave like people—like primates, I suppose.”
“So…we should look into that?”
Hari threw up his hands. “I
But why did they do that spontaneously?
“People.” Hari sat up suddenly. “That’s what we’re missing.”
“Huh? You proved yourself—remember? the Reductionist Theorem?—that individuals don’t matter.”
“They don’t. But people do. Our coupled equations describe them in the mass, but we don’t know the critical drivers.”
“That’s all hidden, down in the data.”
“Maybe not. What if we were big spiders, instead of primates? Would psychohistory look the same?”
Yugo frowned. “Well…if the data were the same…”
“Data on trade, wars, population statistics? It wouldn’t matter whether we were counting spiders instead of people?”
Yugo shook his head, his face clouding, unwilling to concede a point that might topple years of work. “It’s gotta be there.”
“Your coming in here to get details of what the rich and famous do at their revels—where’s that in the equations?”
Yugo’s mouth twisted, irked now. “That stuff, it doesn’t matter. ”
“Who says?”
“Well, history—”
“Is written by the winners, true enough. But how do the great generals get men and women to march through freezing mud? When won’t they march?”
“Nobody knows.”
“We need to know. Or rather, the equations do.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Go to the historians?”
Hari laughed. He shared Dors’ contempt for most of her profession. The current fashion in the study of the past was a matter of taste, not data.
He had once thought that history was simply a matter of grubbing in musty cyberfiles. Then, if Dors would show him how to track down data—whether encoded in ancient ferrite cylinders or polymer blocks or strandware— then he would have a firm basis for mathematics. Didn’t Dors and other historians simply add one more brick of knowledge to an ever-growing monument?
The current style, though, was to marshal the past into a preferred flavor. Factions fought over the antiquity, over “their” history vs. “ours.” Fringes flourished. The “spiral-centric” held that historical forces spread along spiral arms, whereas the “Hub-focused” maintained that the Galactic Center was the true mediating agency for causes, trends, movements, evolution. Technocrats contended with Naturals, who felt that innate human qualities drove change.
Among myriad facts and footnotes, specialists saw present politics mirrored in the past. As the presentfractured and transfigured, there seemed no point of reference outside history itself—an unreliable platform indeed, especially when one realized how many mysterious gaps there were in the records. All this seemed to Hari to be more fashion than foundation. There was no uncontested past.
What contained the centrifugal forces of relativism—let me have my viewpoint and you can have yours—was an arena of broad agreement. Most people generally held that the Empire was good, overall. That the long periods of stasis had been the best times, for change always cost someone. That above the competing throng, through the factions shouting what were essentially family stories at each other, there was worth in comprehending where humanity had passed, what it had done.
But there agreement stopped. Few seemed concerned with where humanity, or even the Empire, was going. He had come to suspect that the subject was ignored, in favor of your-history-against-mine, because most historians unconsciously dreaded the future. They sensed the decline in their souls and knew that over the horizon lay not yet another shift-then-stasis but a collapse.
“So what do we do?” Hari realized that Yugo had said this twice now. He had drifted off into reverie.
“I…don’t know.”
“Add another term for basic instincts?”
Hari shook his head. “People don’t run on instinct. But they do behave like people—like primates, I suppose.”
“So…we should look into that?”
Hari threw up his hands. “I
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