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Am I imagining this or was the idea of "Eternals" who can alter the course of events mentioned by Asimov in one of his later novels in the context of the fact that there are no other intelligent beings in our galaxy? I seem to recall Asimov putting into one of his later novels the idea that robots used time travel to go deep into the past and select a "reality" in which advanced life only evolved on Earth.
Yes, thanks
User:Lefty, it was in
Foundation's Edge. I brought this up because I wonder if Asimov had a major change in his thinking about the evolution of life during his lifetime. Historically, many chemists have failed to be able to imagine how life could arise from non-living molecules (see:
Origin of life). I suspect that Asimov (with a Ph.D. in chemistry) was indoctrinated with the chemists' bias against life being a natural process in our universe. However, during the later 20th century, many biologists came to view the creation of life by natural processes as fairly likely. This newer view has been popularized by people like
Stuart Kauffman, see his book "At home in the Universe". A major impact in this debate was made by the
Miller-Urey experiments of 1953 and the later discovery that nucleic acids can have enzymatic activity (see:
Ribozyme).
Asimov thought about a second "bottle neck" in the evolution of advanced life forms, the evolution of sexual reproduction. He seemed to entertain the idea that even if life arose on another planet, it was unlikely that life on such a world would evolve sexual reproduction and so would be stuck with slow evolution. There was a short story by Asimov that explored this idea, I think it was called "What Is This Thing Called Love?" However, this proposed bottle neck seems to have been explored by Asimov as a joke and a way to get published in Playboy magazine.
I think it likely that by the time Asimov wrote Foundation's Edge, he realized that there had to be some new explanation of why humans from Earth never found any other interesting life forms in the galaxy. I think it was clever for him to suggest that robots (apparently this would have been under the direction of Daneel) had used the time travel technology Eternity to select a Reality in which humans did not have to compete with other life forms for control of the galaxy.
What is disputed? JWSchmidt 16:29, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Though this analog of Asimovs books is close to complete, and mentions many after the fact coincidences, it fails to mention Foundation and Earth. In the end of this story, the character Daneel clearly states and takes time to explain the story of the eternals, and the fact that they were very responsible for the Foundation universe to be devoid of alien lifeforms(aside from Solarians). Yet right before the complete ending of the story, eludes to the existence of an alien being among them, namely the Solarian child Daneel will use as his bodily vessel. Reading the Novels out of sequence is a serious problem to most series, but i find constantly that Asimov took painstaking care to remove any doubt in the readers mind in his vast and sometimes several chapter prolouges (which can be a bit draining if you are in fact reading a series in correct order, but I'll forgive him of that for his need not to leave anyone in the dark).
Reading too much into the book, I would say that
Nothing - I think; But later he would notice that Eternity is not there anymore. Hillgentleman 11:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Not to Enrico Fermi, probably. She said it was going to be a small change. She only said she was going to write a letter to Italy. One innocent looking question to a student or a collegue, or even a letter on an unrelated matter to the shopkeeper near where Fermi lived would be good enough. Hillgentleman 22:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
We may try to attribute our poor memory to the I cannot remember what. Hillgentleman 22:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
In the context, I would think that it did, because Harlan's decision was firm, and the consequence irreversible. But it was not explicitly stated as such, and Harlan did not notice the Change for a while, because he was too absorbed by the scenery. -- Hillgentleman 01:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Image:The End of Eternity.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot 07:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
YOu can hear everywhere, it is the most common time travel paradoxon, "the dead grandma paradox". "If you kill your own grandmother as a girl, then why do you lived so long to do that?" So I wonder if this book is the source which invented (or popularized) the dead grandma paradox, or is it only a famous form of the wandering idea? - DJS from Hungary 81.183.126.40 ( talk) 03:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
[1] ... -- AnonMoos ( talk) 03:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Could "Some people consider it his best work, or at least one of his best." be considered weasel word? If so, then it should be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.189.153 ( talk) 03:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
The entire Plot Analysis section seems to clearly violate WP:NOR in that it makes a lot of subjective claims about the book without making a single citation. In fact, the notion of a Plot Analysis section (unless it were a summary of prominent views with citations) seems to me like it would always inherently violate this policy. If no one objects, I'd like to remove it. His Ryanness ( talk) 21:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I added a category 1950s science fiction novels. Transcendentalist01 ( talk) 23:38, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't see the translation section as being informative. Obviously, someone put in a lot of work. But I think it is basically filler. Can we delete, or simply say "X has been translated into Y languages"? AAABBB222 ( talk) 17:51, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't doubt that it was, but I'd like to read the source as I'm interested in what, exactly, they found objectionable about any sociological ideas discussed in the book. I know that many science fiction novels in the USSR were censored and that authors and writers were told that any advanced alien race or future human society must be depicted as having communistic economic relations - is this the reason for the book's censorship in the Soviet publication? That the far future human societies described were not communist in character? The plot summary and character descriptions describe a woman from a distant future who is from an "aristocratic" class, something which would likely be inconceivable according to Soviet ideology at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:C500:9C50:70FB:5F4A:7173:C467 ( talk) 18:34, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't always closely follow edits to this article, but in response to the claim that "intertemporal trade isn't mentioned in the novel", it's actually mentioned on the very first page of the novel! ("exporters of certain types of distilled potables to nearly everywhen")... AnonMoos ( talk) 02:16, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Am I imagining this or was the idea of "Eternals" who can alter the course of events mentioned by Asimov in one of his later novels in the context of the fact that there are no other intelligent beings in our galaxy? I seem to recall Asimov putting into one of his later novels the idea that robots used time travel to go deep into the past and select a "reality" in which advanced life only evolved on Earth.
Yes, thanks
User:Lefty, it was in
Foundation's Edge. I brought this up because I wonder if Asimov had a major change in his thinking about the evolution of life during his lifetime. Historically, many chemists have failed to be able to imagine how life could arise from non-living molecules (see:
Origin of life). I suspect that Asimov (with a Ph.D. in chemistry) was indoctrinated with the chemists' bias against life being a natural process in our universe. However, during the later 20th century, many biologists came to view the creation of life by natural processes as fairly likely. This newer view has been popularized by people like
Stuart Kauffman, see his book "At home in the Universe". A major impact in this debate was made by the
Miller-Urey experiments of 1953 and the later discovery that nucleic acids can have enzymatic activity (see:
Ribozyme).
Asimov thought about a second "bottle neck" in the evolution of advanced life forms, the evolution of sexual reproduction. He seemed to entertain the idea that even if life arose on another planet, it was unlikely that life on such a world would evolve sexual reproduction and so would be stuck with slow evolution. There was a short story by Asimov that explored this idea, I think it was called "What Is This Thing Called Love?" However, this proposed bottle neck seems to have been explored by Asimov as a joke and a way to get published in Playboy magazine.
I think it likely that by the time Asimov wrote Foundation's Edge, he realized that there had to be some new explanation of why humans from Earth never found any other interesting life forms in the galaxy. I think it was clever for him to suggest that robots (apparently this would have been under the direction of Daneel) had used the time travel technology Eternity to select a Reality in which humans did not have to compete with other life forms for control of the galaxy.
What is disputed? JWSchmidt 16:29, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Though this analog of Asimovs books is close to complete, and mentions many after the fact coincidences, it fails to mention Foundation and Earth. In the end of this story, the character Daneel clearly states and takes time to explain the story of the eternals, and the fact that they were very responsible for the Foundation universe to be devoid of alien lifeforms(aside from Solarians). Yet right before the complete ending of the story, eludes to the existence of an alien being among them, namely the Solarian child Daneel will use as his bodily vessel. Reading the Novels out of sequence is a serious problem to most series, but i find constantly that Asimov took painstaking care to remove any doubt in the readers mind in his vast and sometimes several chapter prolouges (which can be a bit draining if you are in fact reading a series in correct order, but I'll forgive him of that for his need not to leave anyone in the dark).
Reading too much into the book, I would say that
Nothing - I think; But later he would notice that Eternity is not there anymore. Hillgentleman 11:26, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Not to Enrico Fermi, probably. She said it was going to be a small change. She only said she was going to write a letter to Italy. One innocent looking question to a student or a collegue, or even a letter on an unrelated matter to the shopkeeper near where Fermi lived would be good enough. Hillgentleman 22:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
We may try to attribute our poor memory to the I cannot remember what. Hillgentleman 22:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
In the context, I would think that it did, because Harlan's decision was firm, and the consequence irreversible. But it was not explicitly stated as such, and Harlan did not notice the Change for a while, because he was too absorbed by the scenery. -- Hillgentleman 01:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Image:The End of Eternity.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot 07:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
YOu can hear everywhere, it is the most common time travel paradoxon, "the dead grandma paradox". "If you kill your own grandmother as a girl, then why do you lived so long to do that?" So I wonder if this book is the source which invented (or popularized) the dead grandma paradox, or is it only a famous form of the wandering idea? - DJS from Hungary 81.183.126.40 ( talk) 03:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
[1] ... -- AnonMoos ( talk) 03:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Could "Some people consider it his best work, or at least one of his best." be considered weasel word? If so, then it should be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.189.153 ( talk) 03:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
The entire Plot Analysis section seems to clearly violate WP:NOR in that it makes a lot of subjective claims about the book without making a single citation. In fact, the notion of a Plot Analysis section (unless it were a summary of prominent views with citations) seems to me like it would always inherently violate this policy. If no one objects, I'd like to remove it. His Ryanness ( talk) 21:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
I added a category 1950s science fiction novels. Transcendentalist01 ( talk) 23:38, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't see the translation section as being informative. Obviously, someone put in a lot of work. But I think it is basically filler. Can we delete, or simply say "X has been translated into Y languages"? AAABBB222 ( talk) 17:51, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't doubt that it was, but I'd like to read the source as I'm interested in what, exactly, they found objectionable about any sociological ideas discussed in the book. I know that many science fiction novels in the USSR were censored and that authors and writers were told that any advanced alien race or future human society must be depicted as having communistic economic relations - is this the reason for the book's censorship in the Soviet publication? That the far future human societies described were not communist in character? The plot summary and character descriptions describe a woman from a distant future who is from an "aristocratic" class, something which would likely be inconceivable according to Soviet ideology at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:204:C500:9C50:70FB:5F4A:7173:C467 ( talk) 18:34, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't always closely follow edits to this article, but in response to the claim that "intertemporal trade isn't mentioned in the novel", it's actually mentioned on the very first page of the novel! ("exporters of certain types of distilled potables to nearly everywhen")... AnonMoos ( talk) 02:16, 18 March 2020 (UTC)