Isaac Asimov - Master of Science - Extra Sci Fi - Part 1
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Isaac Asimov didn't have a birthday. Nobody knew the exact date of his birth, so he picked one for himself at a young age--and that choice, quite possibly, was what gave us one of his best creative periods.
Subscribe for more episodes every Tuesday! bit.ly/SubToEC
Get the Extra Sci Fi Reading List! bit.ly/ESF_List
___________
Thanks for participating in this week's discussion! We want you to be aware of our community posting guidelines so that we can have high-quality conversations: goo.gl/HkzwQh
Contribute community subtitles to Extra Sci Fi: www.youtube.com...
Talk to us on Twitter (@ExtraCreditz): bit.ly/ECTweet
Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/ECFBPage
Get our list of recommended games on Steam: bit.ly/ECCurator
___________
Would you like James Portnow to speak at your school or organization? For info, contact us at: contact@extra-credits.net
___________
♪ Music: "Hypothetical" by Surasshu
www.aivisura.com/
Asimov laid the foundation for our understanding of robots and space empires. He led science fiction away from simply marveling at technology, to questioning how we use it and what it means for us as a species.
laid the "foundation"? i see what you did there....
I giggle every time someone says Asimov laid the "Foundation" of sci-fi.
old speaker, please come back!
Extra Credits talk about the troubles of Northern Ireland please
I'm baffled by your suggestion that his writing is difficult to read. As someone who has difficulty getting lost in a good story, I just absorb his writing style. It's very information and action-oriented, so that the plot is constantly moving by the reveal of information and the decisions characters make. His descriptions are very succinct and convey only what is relevant for plot or characterization, so much so that when there's a reveal or twist later on, you immediately recognize the detail that should have given it away. You will never, to the best of my knowledge, find a passage that labors on and on with descriptions and details that never come up again, except when it is meant to explore an idea or technological theory as you say, but those times are when his writing shines the brightest.
Granted, it's hard to generalize about Asimov, because his career as a writer spanned something like 50+ years, and that's a lot of time for writing to evolve and improve. But if you want "dense" or "difficult to read", there are much slower paced authors, like Hume and Orwell.
Honestly I think he was at his best writing nonfiction. His fiction stories were imaginative, but he had a way of breaking down complex ideas and making them understandable that I have never seen equaled.
Isaac Asimov was a science nerd. Other sci fi writers would call him if they needed a genuinely scientific plot point. One of them (the name escapes me) said to him "I got a guy stuck on a planet without an atmosphere and no oxygen supply, how is he breathing" and Asimov instantly replied "anaerobic respiration".
Laid the "Foundation"
Haha, I see what you did there.
Lynte Eyet greatest novel series ever
Take your upvote
And built EMPIRES!
I just made the same comment 6 months after you, scrolled down & saw you beat me to it.
I'm perfectly okay with the critique on his actual skill at writing. Brilliant ideas absolutely, but that doesn't make them perfect. We have to be able to appreciate something while still understanding its flaws.
That "issue" with technical writing skill is one of the reasons I much prefer the short stories from most of my favorite authors over their novels. They are still my favorite authors though ;)
So true. It's like Lovecraft and Tolkien. Both pillars of their genres, but Lovecraft's work is incredibly racist and Tolkien's tends to drone on in a monotonous fashion at times. Thing is, we still *love* them, because they brought ideas, characters and techniques to their genres which stand the test of time and speak to something deeper. You don't have to be perfect to be great :)
There's definitely a dryness to Asimov characters. They almost always seem like robots themselves. There's also what looks like ivory tower snobbery, as pretty much everyone who matters to the plot will have a PhD, even if that person is a lift attendant. The concepts and implications explored are phenomenal though. Looking forward to this series exploring the social psychology aspects of Foundation/Empire. Excuse me, I think I want to give petroleum to my V-frog.
I personally like his extreme characters. Very little if any YA angst. Science done in an industrial fashion. History of the Medieval Earth times used as a plan and plot to cause the downfall of the Empire and the rise of First Foundation. And the growing paranoia that something other than the progress of Foundation is controlling the destiny of the First Foundation.
Ebling Mis, a volatile, thrifty man whose favorite cuss words are "unprintable" and "gal-AX-y."
Susan Calvin who hates people and prefers robots.
Hari Seldon, whose study of human nature put him in many culture clashes and embarrassing situations that could not help but turn him into a 3-D character (and ultimately the literary version of Asimov himself).
R. Daneel Olivaw, the robot who traveled through worlds and lived the ages trying to fulfill not only the Three Laws of Robotics but also the Zeroth law (substitute "humanity" or "humankind" for "a human" in the First Law) which was instilled in him by another, more perceptive robot, R. Giskard.
And my favorite, Golan Treviz, who determined which direction human history should continue to preserve its existence and chances to thrive.
Oh, and I also like Greg Powell and Michael Donovan.
All of these characters have developed depth and fleshing out and growth. Just because they all seem academic and dry doesn't mean they are flat, 2-D characters.
Heck! Even a runaway robot enjoyed quoting Gilbert and Sullivan (even as Asimov loved to sing it and even Captain Jean-Luc Picard sang it).
Yeahhhhhh, I recently re-read "Foundation", and that was painful.
Apparently, there will be virtually ZERO women in the Empire, and the few you meet can be bought off with shiny baubles.
Isaac Asimov I put in the same category as Lovecraft and Tolkien. I don't like the majority of their works but they were Lewis and Clarks of their genres, pathing the way for everyone else.
Yo, check out the episode on Lord Dunsany and A Dreamer's Tales, annotated by Extra Credit's own James Portnow. He's the Lewis and Clark that inspired Lovecraft and created the fantasy genre that Tolkien would combine with northern European mythology and philology to make his works.
Tbh, I read some fanfics way back that had the worst writing but the best ideas.
It made me cry.
This is why we ignore fanfics.
One time Asimov sat in on a literature class in college that was discussing some of his work. After class he went to the professor and told her that while her lecture was great she didn't get the meaning he was trying to say across. The professor's response? "Just because you wrote it, what makes you think you have the slightest idea what it is about?"
“The Author is dead”
And that experience inspired him to write "The Immortal Bard"
Pretty sure the subject was "Nightfall".
Better yet, that moment was a personal revelation for Asimov and changed his work in a very positive way. It helped remind him that the reader (along with their personal perspectives and prejudices) is always a participant in the book, no matter what the author has created.
I laughed the first I heard that
Even if you don't know his work you'd know Asimov exists because of how often his laws of robotics are quoted.
gLItcHyGeAR and that sweet awp skin
I only learned about him recently, when i found some of his Foundation series in my grandparent's house, even then i didnt know he was such a famous writer, and now im writing a paper on him
I'm with Bender
"You think robots care what some crack pot scientist thinks"
The three laws sound cool, but are illogical for robotics. Nothing about morality, neutrality, peace or subservience
Just "don't hurt, don't harm, and don't self harm"
Brother, you just opened Pandora's box. . . . . You told a toddler not to do something without explaining why. . . .
@@donovanulrich348 that's not true. First thing to know while understanding computers and robots is that they are dumb. We must guide them, Guide them soo soo precisely because if we didn't, they will fumble. Story is same with Chat GPT and it's all version. They are much carefully crafted as that even a spill of 0 or 1 will mend them unable.
5:48 it was Walpole
It truly always was Walpole....
I've read Nightfall several years ago, i loved it and it moved me... truly. But then the years went by. I kept remembering the story but forgot all about the name.
Skip forward ten years and i'm watching a video of a youtube channel i love and that moved me for so many reasons for so long and in this very video i get the name i forgot so long ago on a silver plate....
I just can't express how much i love you guys
I have several of his history books as well as his sci-fi and there is a lot of old bias in them. There were also gaping holes that we know now that they didn't then. It's fascinating to see what we take for granted now that must have been mind blowing then.
One thing you guys need to cover is how accurate his writing regarding robotics is to modern day software debugging. In I, Robot, several of his characters go through debugging processes to repair malfunctioning androids that mirrors my own experiences as a software developer almost exactly. It's really incredible how he predicted that before the concept of "software" was common knowledge.
Here I was happily waiting for a single episode dedicated to my all time favorite sci-fi writer, and not only do you deliver excellently on that front, but promise two more episodes on his work? What did we do to deserve Extra Credits?
me, audibly for some reason, watching the end card:
"oh no there goes the cat...."
*cat comes back around*
"ohh!"
Love your series on the Greats of Science FIction. Looking forward to ones on Clifford Simak, Lester Del Rey and Ray Bradbury among others.
7:48 First of all, let me say this is not a ''historical fact'' but something I learned from my Literature teacher on highschool (who loved Asimov's works and Sci-Fi in general), but it is said that, when writing, Asimov would use 3 typewriters at the same time to write 3 different things, sometimes even whole different stories.
That's a superpower if I've ever seen one....
Love that you're looking at Asimov! Any chance of a Harlan Ellison episode/series on the horizon, in honour of his passing earlier this year?
@Matt this way of narrating is an improvement over how you did the first 1918 Flu Pandemic episodes. Still no Dan, but you're getting closer. Keep it up!
Thank god, you're back. Missed the Extra Sci Fi!
Nightfall is one of my favorite of Asimov's stories! I recommend it to everyone.
I love the foundation series. One of the most unique universes I've read about.
THANK YOU for saying that he was not a great writer in the technical sense.
Will you ever talk about soviet sci-fi, like Aleksey Tolstoi and Company? It would be very nice!
How about Stanisław Lem?
Asimov had such a unique life and experiences.
Honestly was wondering when you guys get to Asimov !!
5:48 it is always Walpole
Isaac the great, i believe about two third of everything SciFi i red before the age of fast internet was his writings, short and long, and i proudly say if i did not know Asimov i would probably never pick up a pen and start writing myself, although i don't see myself in position to ever do anything in his caliber or even direction, yet, i am a writer mainly because one day i memorized the name Isaac Asimov so i would buy the next book i would see from him on the shelves of that second hand book store...
I love The Cycle of Foundation; it's a clever series of political novels, before anything else, and I like that.
Wow the same thing happened with my great grandfather I wonder if they were on the same street.
Can you please do another African civilization like the Ashanti kingdom, Ethiopian kingdom of Axum, Nubia, Benin, or great Zimbabwe.
2 more eps of Asimov? Nice!
2:12, that's my birthday!
Okay but can we get at least one episode of Extra dirty limericks?
"Ideas" are the most important thing for me in SF.
Will we be getting a video about dune at some point?
I love asmiov, I bought most of his books, Wich was hard to get on my country. But I've always said he was a mediocre writer, ty for agreeing with me. His ideas and the plot though... Are awesome, specially when he wrote them. For me, it was mind-blowing even now to see someone in the 40s to predict social behavior of a world with internet
my favorite author!
5:50 Walpole spotted
am crazy about that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote. hahahahahaha.
I hope that somehow you'll be working in Andre Norton in somehow. Not that I have a particular reason, other than she's one of my favorite old sci-fi authors. Also, she really doesn't seem to ever get noticed.
Finally! Thank you!!
Where's the quantum mechanics episode?
Hey I found this today, it was released 2 days ago:
www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/12/27/35-years-ago-isaac-asimov-was-asked-by-the-star-to-predict-the-world-of-2019-here-is-what-he-wrote.html
Asimov predicted what society would be like in 2019. The Star asked him to write to them in 1983.
Asimov wrote dirty limericks? I want to hear some of those!
You said that you focus abaout golden age of the world but in that time there are two world. World of capitalism and world of socialism. There wasn't information exchange beetwen the worlds. You should make episode about Stanisław Lem the greatest si fi writer in socialism
"Unforeseen Consequences" easter egg? half-life?
It was wallpole
It's common for non-Westernised cultures to not give that much care to the day their children are born, and from what I know Orthodox cultures usually don't celebrate birthdays. I'm from Greece and it isn't that uncommon for very old people to not know their birthday. Asimov isn't really an extreme case.
hey extra credits can you make a video talking about a bug not a simple one i am talking about the nuclear ghandhi bug from civilization series
Today I just learned Isaac Asimov is a Russian.
And I am 25...
Positronic----Data. I wonder if Issac got royalties?
Woooo! My boi Isaac A!
at 6:31 does that resemble thors hammer
is it an important point out
Isaac Asimov is Hari Seldon.
Just as Poe invented the mystery story, science fiction was invented by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Vernian scifi tends to be positive while Wellsian views the pessimistic possibilities of science run amok. Asimov was more of a Vernian. Even so, his non-fiction was much better than his fiction.
What book should i first read from Asimov ?
Wait. Almost no Isaac Asimov meaning almost no modern Sci-Fi means almost no Extra Sci-Fi!
There would be modern Sci-Fi. It'd just be different.
You might say he laid the Foundation of modern sci-fi... I'll let myself out now
The date of birth confusion is easy to understand, Russia had used an old calendar that had drifted to be several weeks off from Western calendars. Throw in some confusion with moving around and changing countries, and remembering the birth was sometime in late Fall might be the closest to accuracy.
And that the family was probably confused about the language change
Also dont forget the change from metric time to imperial time system. Probably lost a year or two in translation there.
Issac Asimov was one author that the ideas were the reason for the book to be read. You nail that Asimov was poor in character development but the idea of thinking machines would be created and interact with humans was his child. Please don't forget "The Last Question".
Which one is "The Last Question" again? Is that the one where people keep asking Multivac how to reverse entropy?
That's the one.
I thought the last question was "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
Michael Wells which one? An African or a European swallow?
...come to think of it, THAT might be the last question. :p
I would like to point that the most "human" characters I did ever read from an Asimov's work were the three aliens from "The Gods Themselves".
A neat cultural item: Not knowing their child’s actual birthday (likely just not knowing how the Jewish calendar they used overlapped with the US civil calendar) and erring on the side of pushing their children academically - and also the medical school focus - was in my mother’s family, too - she is a first-generation Eastern European American on her father’s side.
If I ever feel discouraged while writing, I watch these videos. I hear the stories of these legendary writers in situations similar to my own. Thanks, extra credits, for keeping me on the path that I may or may not end on top of.
I'd like to take a moment to congratulate the artist at how great the faces at 6:49 are drawn. So few line strokes to work with, but all of them nail exactly the right emotion in an instantly recognizable fashion.
Lays the Foundation huh. Walpole is our Hari Sheldon.
Hari Seldon and I'd say he was more like Daneel, quietly pulling strings in the background of history
weldonwin Nice
Finally! I've been waiting for this one for quite a while. My all time favourite!
Isaac Asimov, Alan Moore, and Robert Anton Wilson forever changed my perspective.
If your into these guys try 'Roadside picnic' by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Its quite brilliant.
I was basically brought up on Asimov and Masamune Shirow.
FNORD
Yes, I've seen them (fnords). Too easy to spot these days, huh?
Anyone want to expand on the "clerical error honorable discharge".
Wait, can't you go over the portfolios of dirty lymerics instead?
we forget the best sci-fi writer, kilgore trout
FOR SCIENCE!!!
seems a bit wierd for flu to say that
Oh the irony
What Greatness the flu has brought to the comment sections.
Well,
FLU IS A VIRUS WITCH IS SCIENCE!
FOR SCIENCE!
One of my favorite authors of all time! The Foundation Trilogy is one my personal picks, which I think, inspired a lot of Star Wars.
Coruscant = Trantor?
Zvi mur I know right?
It also inspired a lot of Warhammer 40k.
Warhammer 40,000 just takes whole concepts and ztorues from the Foundation series.
Just remembering on my constant suggestions here we might need to do videos on the major artists and writers of some of the famous sci-fi (like yukito kishiro, Mamuro Nagano, mobeus, and many others) as sci-fi is much like any other genre multi medium.
My 2nd favorite author of 'Robot' stories after Stanisław Lem.
Alorand Wait he wrote robot stories? I've only read Solaris so that's a surprise to me.
@@merrittanimation7721 he even wrote Robot tales.
I hope there is an episode on The Gods Themselves
We don't need no moon...
Ditto! I just commented that I don't think they'll mention it, but that book had some ideas worth mentioning!
Man that book is one of his highlights
I wonder how they'll depict the aliens
Blasphemy! Heressy!, To the pire with you!....
Well... to the pire when you are done with this saga...
XD
Nicely done!
Keep it up!
Pyre, not pire.
Ty!
An interesting tidbit, Issac Asimov refused to fly. Back in the day if you wanted him for a convention you had to arrange bus, or train transportation.
Also hoping you use the Harlan Ellison anecdote of Ellison's first meeting with Asimov when he was just starting out.
Nelson Smith Apparently he had a fear of flying and open spaces
Does human nature really change, or is it simply responding to the technology (plus the goods/distractions some tech produces) of the era?
Memes... in the Dawkins sense, not internet ;)
Ahh real memes, the genes of society, or as the internet meme goes DNA of the Soul.
Yeah human nature on a fundamental level, never changes, it's just how we express those emotions or to what extent that changes, how we view the world based on science, social progress and technology. The same tendencies we had thousands of years ago are still there. Society changes however and with it, what we expect to be normal and considered okay vs what we don't. Unfortunately for writers, we're all stuck in our own time period and no matter what we do, we can't ever really tell a "realistic" future because we're always basing it on society and science that we know of now.
Depends what we mean by "human nature". Our psychology and personality is certainly flexible and responds to environmental conditions - i.e. take identical twins and raise one in war-zone and the other in a safe white-picket-fence suburb and they'll end up very different people.
I just finish rereading the Foundation Series including the follow-ups written years later and have just started listening to the Robot Series on audiobooks. Even after 50+ years Isaac Asimov still amazes me. My reactions from high school student to retired college instructor have changed and haven't changed. I'm no longer in awe of his technological vision but I still wonder at the ideas and concepts he created. His non-fiction were excellent as well.
I don't think I'd want an Asimov story told with a "technically good" style. I love his stories exactly as they are.
I noticed that while I do not like Asimov's prose and character development, I still ate up "I, Robot" when I got my raccoon hands on it. The stories just have a certain amount of charm and revolution to them that I as soon as I started a shortstory, I NEEDED to be done with it in one sitting. It makes me happy that he wanted to make robots, while still artificial in nature, normal and full of their own sets of quirks
Another problem with Asimov's law is their scope: Should a robot consider the effects its actions will have on say, humans a hundred years from now? What if there is a very small chance of potential harm to humans, like 0.01%? what is the threshold for a robot to decide whether the threat should be ignored or considered? because in the end, almost anything it does has a chance of harming humans in some way.
I couldn't agree more on the "not being a good writer on a technical level" thing. It definately feels like a lot of his characters are just "plot drivers", and he didn't even seemed ashamed of it, as he would constantly claimed "I had this cool idea and made X character rant about it". HOWEVER, his later work, during the 80's and early 90's, would seen a much more humane Asimov, and you can easily notice the difference in his narrative. The best examples of this might be the Foundation prequels, specially the last one (even if he couldn't finish it by himself before passing away). Those novels showed very particular characterization and, no kidding, had legitimately emotional moments, without loosing the plot brilliances he had me used to.
"Dirty limericks"? Aren't all limericks dirty?
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
Im here after Rick and Morty
Oooh, I love this new series!
He said his dad got him a typewriter. But when he revised a story, he had to have full pages. So he developed the ability to revise while preserving the length of what was being replaced.
I met him at a science fiction club meeting at MIT. Our club had the record for most meeting posters stolen; one was ripped off even before it went up.
Not only did he make some great sci fi
He also made great strides in the research of thiotimoline
The guy was a GENIUS. Asimov must have such mind to create and visualize humanity with these improvements, altering the quality of life of the people, but always keep them human.
In this regard, Nightfall is such a masterpiece. The ability to visualize humanity going completely out of their collective minds when the stars appear one night, instead of feeling wonder and amazement. And then create 3 three laws and imagine slight changes in the environment to cause all sorts of effects with the robots.
This said I agree with him not being, uhm, PERFECT. The guy had troubles creating believable characters, especially women. And, at times he is particularly verbose when describing situations. Too many times I have wished to return to read him and realize that I cannot enjoy him as much. It's trully sad.
It's a bit of a bummer that this guy doesnt cite his sources
By the way since it will undoubtedly come up, Asimov's laws of robotics don't work and shouldn't be taken seriously (unless you are seriously considering how they fall short of AI safety); even his writing demonstrates that they don't work.
This statement is basically the "Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the creature" of Asimov's work.
The whole point of Asimov's writings is that the laws of robotics DON'T work as intended.
I guess you mean this whole "define a human", "define harm" etc. debacle? While yes, if you use the definitions as they are told for humans in the books, they don't work for that reason, but the laws are not, in fact, the 3 phrases we all know and love. The laws are more sci-fi-y in nature, they are encoded patterns into the positronic brain of a robot, which in layman's terms roughly translates to the definitions we all know. The actual implementation of these laws is never really explored, since, I assume, the moral issues of defining "human" and "harm" never really crossed Asimov's mind. The laws CAN work, if we stop looking at them from a natural language perspective and realize that the robotologists encoded more thorough and machine understandable definitions of the words.
Although, this is the real world, we must actually do the defining, we can't brush it off as being "solved" by robotology to just further a plot. So in the real world, we must first solve ethics, morality, and define "human" and "harm", and THEN we can start having the same issues as in Asimov's stories, since the stories are, in fact, about how these laws will fail
The I Robot stories are fantastic in that back in 1950, Aasimov predicted the trials of a modern IT department.
Namely, dealing with unexpected software flaws.
Iirc, he came up with the laws very early in his career, and as his stories explored the concept he found the loopholes and exploited them naturally. It wasn't a fully formed 'here are the laws, and here are the problems with them' instant concept.
"Write me a story about that..." the thing Stephen King demands from himself every day xD
the best sci-fi autor is k.dick
"Asimov laid the Foundation" - I see what you did there!
Foundation dramatically changed my view on the world. One of my all time favorite trilogies.
I hope you'll do afrofuturism at some point. I know it mostly tends to happen in music, but just imagine the art! :)
So he wasn't a good writer but had great ideas?
Just throw a bit of humor, some catch phrases, hot alien chicks and there you have it: Futurama
HELLcopter TS. Futurama was excellent writing.... and its catch phrases, not frases.
SHOTS FIRED!!!!!
Futurama has no writing, its just a collection of amazing ideas.
You never know how an episode will start, end, or whats going to happen in the next 5 mins. Futurama has no plot, no character development or drama. Its all about:
"Hey, how about a theme park... ON THE MOON?"
"With blackjack... and hookers?"
BAM! Futurama episode right there.
And its AWESOME.
He was a bad writer with big ideas.
Didn't they use the Visi-Soner in one Futurama episode? I don't watch that show and I'm half remembering a Wikipedia article
The voice Matt used to quote Emerson is the voice Matt should always use just sayin'...
Oh please no! Imagining an entire video in that voice... maybe a useful treatment for insomnia.
5:53 "It was Warpole". Some things should never change.
Noice! _Robotics_ never really did that much for me but the _Foundation_ series rank among my favorite books!
f