On Sep 15, 2008, at 8:42 AM, John Cowan wrote:
Rob Seaman scripsit:
I'm not sure I want to encourage this thread :-) but the answer is
precisely that you are positing a human enterprise. Merely by
referring to "civilization", you are conjuring vast webs of
connections to natural cycles at all scales. Even in an extreme
"Caves of Steel" scenario, the troglodyte trillions are locked to
diurnal cycles of solar power stations and the daily cadences of
robotic combine harvesters to feed the buried billions, and even
commerce with other star systems points to the rhythms of other suns
That's what the author of "The Caves Of Steel" called planetary
chauvinism.
I was referring to the Asimov novel - agoraphobe detective and his
positronic partner. Asimov's fiction is firmly located in the so-
called hard SF realm of nuts and bolts and the laws of physics. No
blood dripping Frazetta princesses on the covers of Isaac's books. It
is precisely this common sense world view that was required of the
creator of psychohistory. (Although I'm not sure wikipedia will serve
to preserve civilization through the coming collapse :-)
In both his fiction and nonfiction, Asimov focused on human needs in a
technical context. This is heart and soul of issues like timekeeping,
systems of units and mathematical notations.
Rob
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