Psychohistory

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, mathematician Hari Seldon predicts the mighty Galactic Empire is on the verge of collapse. It ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, and the ensuing chaos will lead to a dark age lasting 30,000 years. But Seldon also finds that "a carefully designed nudge can change that path". So he plans to create a "Foundation" that will preserve human knowledge and culture through the dark age and eventually pave the way for a new era of enlightenment. The core concept of the Seldon Plan is Psychohistory, a mathematical and scientific approach to predicting the behavior of large populations over time.

Before Seldon, a group of mathematicians and scientists developed the Psychohistory concept but failed due to individual human beings' unpredictable and chaotic nature. Seldon came up with a new approach. The chaos goes away under a few preconditions.

1. Large populations. Psychohistory assumes it can only make accurate predictions about large populations. The larger the population, the more accurate the forecast.
2. Limited information. Psychohistory assumes the information available about individuals within the population cannot be predicted accurately. Due to this, only a few knowledgeable individuals know about the existence of Psychohistory. People think Psychohistory is an antiquated and obsolete field of study, just like how we feel about Alchemy.
3. Homogeneity. Psychohistory assumes people are relatively homogeneous, with similar values, beliefs, and behaviors, far from unexpectedness. Later in the Foundation series, the Mule, a mutant who can manipulate emotions, invalidated the Seldon Plan.
4. Only humans can affect the course of history. Psychohistory assumes only humans can affect the course of history. It does not consider the possibility of external factors, such as natural disasters or extraterrestrial beings, that could disrupt or alter the predicted course of events.
5. The speed of scientific progress should not outpace historical progress. Psychohistory assumes technological progress could cause a "Singularity" that would disrupt the predicted course of events and lead to unintended consequences.

Seldon also recognized that Psychohistory observing the future also affects history in the long term (just like Copenhagen Interpretation in Quantum Physics) and would become increasingly less reliable as the time horizon extended further into the future. So he devised a plan to create two complementary Foundations separated by a significant distance, ensuring they could operate independently and unforeseen events would not influence them. This is known as the Second Foundation in the series.

Some core ideas of Psychohistory actually shaped economics and sociology, which is interesting. Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008, credited the "Foundation" series with helping him to think about the role of economics in shaping the future of humanity and the dangers of political and economic instability.

Psychohistory is a fictional study, but I cannot eradicate a latent disgust that Seldon's prediction of "we are on the verge of collapse and that the ensuing chaos will lead to a dark age" holds for our society. So what can we do in this chaotic era to build our foundation? How would we preserve the light of sentience in this galaxy?