the great thing about this is that Asimov's most famous sf is based on ludicrously half-baked notions that aggressively misrepresent intellectual knowledge in the fields he's discussing.https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/1212699325018656768 …
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the three laws of robotics are among the most ridiculous SF ideas ever promulgated...but the predictive sociology in the Foundation series manages to be even more preposterous.
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Replying to @nberlat
they also contain an understanding of "formal logic" which is so bizarre as to transcend mere wrongness
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Replying to @sistersinead @nberlat
If you mean the General Semantics stuff that was a legit fad that spread around nerdy Americans in the 30s and 40s, not just among science fiction writers, although it probably played a role in Hubbard being able to found Dianetics and Scientology
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Replying to @arthur_affect @nberlat
I'm not that familiar with General Semantics but I don't think so - there's a bit in Foundation, iirc, when somebody takes a contract or treaty and "converts it into symbolic logic" to discover that it doesn't actually bind any of its signatories
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Replying to @sistersinead @nberlat
Yeah I remember this being described as an application of general semantics, though I could be wrong
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Replying to @arthur_affect @nberlat
(I think Heinlein had a similar misconception of formal logic as something that could be used to get to the Real Truth of complex texts)
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Yeah Heinlein was the one who was a huge general semantics disciple
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