Isaac Asimov and the Consciousness of Change

2020

This article analyzes such an aspect in the work of the American writer Isaac Asimov as modeling the society of the future. It is determined that the main problem before the next step in the development of society, Azimov considers distrust of technologies, and, sometimes, even a certain fear of them. It also turns out that Asimov sees science fiction as a solution to this problem, which he formulates in terms of the theory of evolution. The history of the evolution of human society proves that it must constantly change and develop, otherwise it can simply collapse. In his works, Asimov describes how the active introduction of new technologies into the life of modern society leads to its transformation, a polarization arises between technophobes and technophiles, who, in fact, represent the fears and dreams of people. However, what are the reasons for these public concerns? Fear of technology or fear of losing control? It is this question that manifests itself in many of the writer\...

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2022

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2019

New York Review of Science Fiction, 2021

When Isaac Asimov began to expand the fictional universe of his acclaimed Foundation Trilogy in 1982—almost thirty years after the publication of its prior entry, Second Foundation (1953)—he did so with the express intention of assimilating its continuity into a unified “history of the future” with his Robot and Galactic Empire series. Although the Foundation Universe has received little critical attention to date as a unified series, the analysis of it cumulatively reveals its significantly mundane and repetitive aspects. Demonstrably, the rhetorical function of such banal components renders the series conspicuously posthuman.

Nexus, 2020

Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, 1988

Psychohistory, the science of historical prediction imagined by Asimov in his Foundation series, is a form of what Karl Popper calls "historicism". Despite its inability to account for all possible occurrences, psychohistory is portrayed as broadly accurate; thus it is fundamentally at odds with Popper's position. Psychohistory is also fundamentally at odds with Marx's historical materialism.

Nuncius, 26/1,, 2011

Society for U.S. Intellectual History, 2018

Review of "A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H. G. Wells to Isaac Asimov", by Peter J. Bowler Resenha do livro "A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H. G. Wells to Isaac Asimov", de Peter J. Bowler

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, 2021