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0 pointsjrmg4y ago0 comments

Disclaimer: though I think they _would_ be something I’d enjoy, I’ve for some reason never read the books.

I’m pretty sure Seldon being wrong about the smaller things is going to be a recurring thing in the series. People just _think_ he can predict them. He seems to too, despite knowing rationally that he cannot (he’s stated that numerous times).

The theme of the Seldon plot seems to be: is Seldon predicting things, or causing them? Are his actions choices that are driving events, is he being forced into his role by fate (or math), or is everything he does irrelevant? Is the very fact that he, and we, are confused about this proof that the questions don’t even make sense? Can some of all these contradicting things be true at the same time?

Might it be true that he is _both_ predicting events and driving them? Wouldn’t that mean that one of these ideas is false?

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Jtsummers4y ago

All of those themes are in the books, it's why he sets the Foundation up to make an encyclopedia. They aren't supposed to know, because (too much) knowledge of the future leads to potentially massive change (a variation on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). So they can't know their real purpose (or one of their purposes) without changing the results.

And the series subverts that from the start, why? What does it do to make it better?

That last question is the key for me. A show or movie is never the same as the book (or very rarely). There are a lot of things that can or should be changed for adaptation. But why would you subvert one of the key themes that defined the book series?

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Jtsummers4y ago

And the series subverts that from the start, why? What does it do to make it better?

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