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Our chosen March Classic SF/F Novel read and discussion (by a comfortable margin) is:


Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Foundation was published in 1951, a fixup novel combining eight short stories written between 1942 and 1950. The entire triology it began was given special recognition by the Hugo awards in 1966 as "best series of all time".

This was probably my first introduction to SF many years ago. I'm looking forward to rereading it as soon as I find my copy of it. lol.

I love this early Foundation book. Don't get me wrong, the whole series is a 'must read' for anyone who wants to become aquatinted with science fiction in the 20th century, however the style of this first book is almost unique in and among the rest of the books, it is paced to attract both the novice reader and the veteran.

Out of the five stories, my favourite has always been part 3, The Mayors, for its blatant criticism of religion in the form of Scientism and showing how superstitions and lack of rational thinking can lead to subjugation.

G33z3r wrote: "
Foundation
was published in 1951, a fixup novel combining eight short stories written between 1942 and 1950. The entire triology it began was given special recognition by the Hugo awards in 196..."

Hi, doesn't the Foundation novel have five stories? The whole of the original three book have eight.

�������� wrote: "Hi, doesn't the Foundation novel have five stories? The whole of the original three book have eight."

I'll take your word for it. I know one of the original stories was "The Mule", which received a Retro Hugo award, but it's been so long since I read the trilogy, I don't remember which book that character first appeared in. :(

One of my fav books by Asimov, its a great book in a great series.

One of the few science fiction classics that hasn't had the misfortune of being made into a crappy film. Foundation is also one of the only two SF books (the other being Dune) that I always recommend as a starting point for readers looking to try the genre. An absolutely timeless and brilliant read.

Kevis wrote: "One of the few science fiction classics that hasn't had the misfortune of being made into a crappy film...."

Considering Mr. Asimov's popularity, and that he wrote almost 100 science fiction books, it's surprising only two of them were adapted into movies ("I, Robot" and "Nightfall", though they didn't pay a lot of attention to either book beyond the title. He also wrote a novelization of the movie "Fantastic Voyage".)

Psychohistory versus Chaos Theory
What about Free Will?

Underpinning Asimov's Foundation trilogy is Hari Seldon's science of "psychohistory", the ability to map out the medium- and long-term course of history through the centuries. Through it, Seldon and his fellow psychohistorians predict the downfall of the Galactic Empire and are able to plot out the effects of various decisions to guide society through the quickest path to rebirth.

A number of technology historians, such as Malcolm Gladwell and James Burke, have discussed this theory of inevitability, at least as far as science and technology is concerned, though they perceive it only retroactively (if the Wright brothers hadn't created an airplane, Dumont or Kress would have, etc.)

The counter theory to that is Lorenz's Chaos theory, where he postulates the butterfly effect, which asserts that sometimes very tiny things have huge effects (Gladwell & Talib also embraces this theory within the technological sphere.)

(view spoiler)[ Asimov loosely accounts for this in his Second Foundation, a group of psychohistorians whose job it is to nudge the flow of events back on the proper trajectory. (hide spoiler)]

So, today's assignment is as follows:

1. Is Hari Seldon's psychohistory possible? Can the course of history be predicted? Do individuals such as Genghis Khan, Napoleon, or Churchill really have an effect on history? Or are they just the people who happen to be there when history happened?

2. Devise a simulation model of the universe. Show how this accounts for the Norman conquest in 1066, the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the victory of the Ravens in the 2013 Super Bowl.

I read Foundation many years after was written. From "science" point of view is a failure (my point of view, don't kill me I am still young)as almost all other science fiction books dealing with long term or very short term predictions. The technical development described in Foundation (imperium) will be standard in 2-3 hundred years not in 10 thousands). Apart some unexpected hiccups (meteorites landing, aliens or total destruction wars) we will enter in a post-human phase in around 50 years.
What I found interesting is the social part, how he described the path of a civilization to its own demise. I remember a conversation between a "marquise" or something similar going on the Foundation planet and discussing history with the scientists there.
He dismissed the need for new archeological research telling that what was important to discover was already done and "real" historians are the ones able to extract and combine pieces of facts from already existing books.
It is from memory so ...

G33z3r wrote: "Psychohistory versus Chaos Theory
What about Free Will?"

There is a theory about a holographic universe where our world is only a simulation to test something like psychohistory. And in some many years we will be able to create our own holographic universes in simulations. This year will be an experiment to test the theory. They will look for space pixelization. Some smaller experiments already point for our space fabric being made from pixels. I don't have enough knowledge to comment on this but if true shows that your question was already predicted ;)

G33z3r wrote: "Psychohistory versus Chaos Theory
What about Free Will?
"

To be perfectly honest i never believed that psychohistory was a viable science at least not to the extent portrayed in the novels. The impact certain individuals have had on our history on just this one planet shows that the actions of the individual are important. To try to predict the future of an entire galaxy with the kind of precision in the novels doesnt seem very likely to me. But who knows with further advances in technology it might just be possible one day, at least in broad strokes .

Deeptanshu wrote: "To be perfectly honest i never believed that psychohistory was a viable science at least not to the extent portrayed in th..."

Asimov introduced the Mule as an example that strong individuals can alter the history in unpredictable ways.
Disregarding individuals, I don't think that will be possible to make such predictions as any logical algorithm cannot invent new things. So if a new type of society or unknown technologies will arrive in the future no algorithm is able to predict their apparition and evolution.

Stef wrote: "I read Foundation many years after was written. From "science" point of view is a failure (my point of view, don't kill me I am still young)as almost all other science fiction books dealing with lo..."

idk, I'm not so certain about the prospects of strong AI in the near future though I don't believe those philosophical arguments against it.

Stef wrote: "Deeptanshu wrote: "To be perfectly honest i never believed that psychohistory was a viable science at least not to the extent portrayed in th..."

Asimov introduced the Mule as an example that str..."

That is a very good point, I believe its mentioned in the series itself somewhere that rapid technological advancement would derail the Seldon plan , it only managed to maintain its accuracy thanks to the period of stagnation the human race was enduring.

Xdyj wrote: "idk, I'm not so certain about the prospects of strong AI in the near future though I don't believe those philosophical arguments against it.
..."

AI has many definitions, and for many years went in the wrong direction trying to emulate in a 0 and 1 world natural analogues processes (an example the brain simulation done in Switzerland is now over rat level but is only a functional simulation using thousands of CPU). In the last years things changed and now brute force and data mining algorithms are used to simulate low levels AI. IBM Watson is able to understand natural language dialogs and answer complicate questions, and now learning to play the doctor and diagnose patients, it seems with good success. Some programmes went very close to pass the Turing test but for me this test it is obsolete.
Next phase will be when memristors will replace the actual logical units in CPUs and we will simulate analogues processes with analog logic. But memristors are not in the psychohistory :)
It will be interesting when the Singularity described by Vernor Vinge will come over us. He stated also that: "no current models of reality are sufficient to predict beyond it".

G33z3r wrote: "A number of technology historians, such as Malcolm Gladwell and James Burke, have discussed this theory of inevitability, at least as far as science and technology is concerned, though they perceive it only retroactively (if the Wright brothers hadn't created an airplane, Dumont or Kress would have, etc.)
..."

Scientific or technological discoveries always come based on an existing set of knowledge. A plane can be invented after the wheel, the engine ... are invented and the plane concept is already in many minds, so yes there is a kind of inevitability.
Exceptions are few and they are "forgotten" and "rediscovered" when their time is ripen, like Mandel hereditary laws, and they touch mostly interdisciplinary analyses (Mandel used advanced mathematics in biology and all biologists scratched their heads because of this).

Stef wrote: "technological discoveries always come based on an existing set of knowledge... so yes there is a kind of inevitability... Exceptions are few and they are "forgotten" and "rediscovered" when their time is ripen..."

I mostly agree with the "inevitability" historical view, though inventions are only inevitable in retrospect. Until someone actually flew an airplane, it's possible that couldn't be done, and until someone finds the Higgs boson, it's possible it doesn't exist.

Another exception would be accidental discoveries. Penicillin wasn't inevitable, since Fleming wasn't really looking for it. Penzias and Wilson weren't looking for the cosmic background radiation, they were trying to get the noise out of their new microwave antenna.

In these cases, if Hari Seldon's psychohistorians could predict similar discoveries, they'd also be the galaxy's greatest scientists and inventors.

As Deeptanshu observed earlier, psychohistory is only plausible if science and technology is stagnant.

It has been a long time since I have read this book, time to reread! Hmmm psychohistory vs chaos theory. They may go together. You can predict something happening to a certain extent, but there is always some information that you may not have or some element that does not fall in line the way you may think.
It raises a question though is everything inevitable? Is nothing inevitable? or is there a mix of things that can be changed and things that are inevitable?

It occurred to me that the idea that psychohistory renders the course of civilization largely predictable contradicts another of Asimov's own books,The End of Eternity. In the latter, a group of time technicians travel downwhen and upwhen fixing things by making the Minimum Necessary Change (MNC). In the first mission of that book, the MNC is simply moving a container from one shelf to another, thus improving the lives of billions. Quite the antithesis of historic inevitability.

Of course, it's not necessary that all of an author's speculative fiction writings be consistent. What would be the fun of that?

Deeptanshu wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "Psychohistory versus Chaos Theory
What about Free Will?
"

To be perfectly honest i never believed that psychohistory was a viable science at least not to the extent portrayed in th..."

I feel like it actually is very viable when you consider society as a whole. As someone pointed out, if the Wright Brothers hadn't invented the airplane, someone else would have. So, that said, in the span of a few hundred years, I think you could predict a future event or events with relative accuracy when you lay them out as probabilities. With psychohistory, nothing was 100% guaranteed, because there is always the possibility of a single person or event changing the world.

Now, on the other hand, I believe it's impossible to predict a single persons, or even a small group of persons history with any amount of accuracy, for a whole lot of reasons.

It may not even need to be a stagnant society, with little to no invention, as g33z3r had mentioned, but the relative accuracy of predictions for a stagnant society would be much greater than that of a newly developing society or a society in an economic or industrial boom.

Speaking of economic or industrial societies we do try and predict things mathematically and scientifically. There are analysts that try and predict the rise and fall of economies. There are business analysts that try and predict the path a business would and should take. Would that be much different then predicting where a political system will end up if keeping course and what it would take to change that course?

Vera wrote: "Speaking of economic or industrial societies we do try and predict things mathematically and scientifically.... Would that be much different then predicting where a political system will end up if keeping course and what it would take to change that course?"

Yes and no? We do have plenty of current mathematical models of the economy, and one can certainly imagine future generations refining those to actually have reliable predictive value. I can imagine those ideas being applied to political movements in general.

I think there are couple of things that break these models, though: The outlier, black swan, unknown unknown, whatever term is fashionable.

Technological innovation: E.g. the Industrial Revolution (As I opined earlier, in hindsight it's possible to see that many scientific advances were "inevitable", but predicting them beforehand is another matter.) Deeptanshu stated earlier that psychohistory in Foundation might be plausible because technology is stagnant following a great decline of civilization, making it possible for Hari Sheldon to predict how humanity would retrace its steps.

Discoveries: E.g. Columbus finds "India". For the Americas, the sudden change was catastrophically dramatic, only slightly less so for Europe. (That discovery, too, was probably inevitable, but not predictable: it's only inevitable given the existence of the New World, and if you could predict that then you would already have made the discovery!)

Unique Leaders of unique charisma or strategic genius: E.g. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Gandhi, Hitler, Stalin. Often their effect manifests as warfare with unpredictable outcome. As Stef pointed out earlier, Asimov uses The Mule to embody that possibility. (But Asimov also relies on the superiority of the Second Foundation's psychohistorians to restore the plan. What happens if they aren't superior?)

Rereading through the short stories it feels more like it is a how do I get other people to make this event happen rather than a this event is inevitable.

As far as discoveries go if they could be predicted then you would already have to have the knowledge which would mean it is already discovered. You may be able to predict that someone will explore somewhere because of human curiosity and innovation to make the exploration possible. Yet, can not predict what that will lead to or what will be found in exploration.

I think an outcome is too unpredictable when you throw in a human element even with knowledge of all the facts. Human psyche and emotion is too unpredictable. When you throw those into the equation there can be many different outcomes. It does not mean things will not go the way you expect or that there can't be a likely scenario, but the likely scenario does not always happen.

Bonus question: if models become highly accurate, do they distort what they model? If everyone knows the economy is going to improve, does that prediction in itself cause the economy to grow? If everyone knows their favorite candidate is going to lose the election, do they give up and not vote? In Foundation, the Sheldon Plan is a secret, revealed only occasionally and after the fact in the holographic appearances. What would happen if Psychohistory were public?

G33z3r wrote: "Bonus question: if models become highly accurate, do they distort what they model? If everyone knows the economy is going to improve, does that prediction in itself cause the economy to grow? If ev..."

This is actually quite interesting. I had a similar discussion with my sister just last week. Our discussion stemmed from us driving past a sign for psychic readings.

Our conclusion was that knowing a certain future would almost certainly alter behavior, if not completely change the result.

First example: If I were told that I would be killed by getting hit by a bus, I'd make twice as sure before crossing the street. This won't 100% keep me from getting struck by a bus, but my actions have been changed.

Second example: If I'm told I'll be killed by a ricochet from a drive by in NY city, I could completely change that future by never going to NY.

In the case of the Election, I think they would absolutely give up and not even go to the polls. That can work both ways though. The "losing" side could give in and just submit to their loss, OR they could rally to still get everyone to the polls while the "winning" side doesn't show up, thinking they had it in the bag.

I don't think there are any definites in the future. I think the future is ever changing. Maybe not to the extent of the butterfly effect, but an individual or groups actions can definitely change the course of the future.

I think the more I think about it, the more confused I make myself...

Jason wrote: "Deeptanshu wrote: "G33z3r wrote: "Psychohistory versus Chaos Theory
What about Free Will?
"

To be perfectly honest i never believed that psychohistory was a viable science at least not to the ext..."
But many inventions and discoveries are made accidentally as Gezzer pointed out Penicillin is an excellent example of this.
History itself has been shaped to a certain extent because of the actions of individuals. For example if Gandhi did not exist would India have been freed by a non violent revolution. It seems unlikely.

Jason wrote: "If I were told that I would be killed by getting hit by a bus, I'd make twice as sure before crossing the street. This won't 100% keep me from getting struck by a bus, but my actions have been changed...."

There's an old, amusing fable of an inevitable prediction. The English version, as retold by W. Somerset Maugham, goes like this:

A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Shortly, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death, and she made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant's horse, he flees at top speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles, where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death, and asks why she made the threatening gesture. She replies, "That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

ah yes there is that whole, does knowing and changing what you would have done not knowing actually cause things to happen.

If you were foretold to die from a driveby in NYC, and then dont go to NYC would you not die or would death just find you in another way. Or maybe something happens where you are forced to go there and there is no way you can stay away. Or you think the psychic is full of it and go anyways.

There are different rules for long term and short term predictions. Long term predictions are less influenced by personalities and our own knowledge about the predictions themselves. Their influence is simply absorbed after a while. A good example Genghis Khan. Mongolia influence exploded fast then imploded. Now is insignificant. The same for Macedon and Greece. How India obtained independence will be irrelevant in 200 years. The same for The Mule, he was not predicted, he had influence but disregarding the Second Foundation his disappearing would push the things back in line.

Another interesting story happened in France when the Chinese foreign minister Zhou visited De Gaulle. One discussion was: What about the French revolution influence in the world? The answer came: It is to early to say.

Asimov psychohistory played in a stagnant imperium, so one of conditions discussed here is fulfilled, technological advance did not play a role. Even more, a decline was expected so this was in many ways a "retrospect" prediction.
And I think that we have also to differentiate between social predictions and technological ones. A social prediction can go unchallenged by technological changes. Feudalism, capitalism are spread for many centuries, lot of discoveries happened in these centuries.

G33z3r wrote: "Jason wrote: "If I were told that I would be killed by getting hit by a bus, I'd make twice as sure before crossing the street. This won't 100% keep me from getting struck by a bus, but my actions ..."


I've heard that one before. It's a great story.

Stef wrote: "There are different rules for long term and short term predictions. Long term predictions are less influenced by personalities and our own knowledge about the predictions themselves. Their influenc..."

This seems to be a shallow reading of history. Great events like the conquests of Genghis Khan always leave their mark, for example India was conquered by one of his descendants long after the original empire had fallen and they called themselves the Mughals, historical time periods are interconnected they do not stand alone.

Deeptanshu wrote: "This seems to be a shallow reading of history. Great events like the conquests of Genghis Khan always leave their mark, for example India was conquered by one of his descendants long after the original empire had fallen and they called themselves the Mughals, historical time periods are interconnected they do not stand alone.."

I agree with your affirmation. No Genghis Khan = no Mughal state and no Taj Mahal. Interestingly they were no Mongols, they spoke a Turkish dialect and belonged to the Persian culture.

But this doesn't change the human civilization course, which will go up till a point where it will go down. Other state would have been formed in India, other rulers, other monuments. The Mughals were a tribe of warriors conquering an area in developing phase. This mixture created a new structure. The same happened with Mongols in China, with Arabs in Middle East, with Assyrians in Mesopotamia
When warrior tribes conquered areas in decline they built nothing. The Visigoths in Spain, The Lombards in Italy. A society in decline goes usually goes down disregarding its rulers. In history civilizations went up and declined, some of them in cycles other disappearing. When one went down another one, in another place, went up. It was always a reserve pool of regions starting to raise when other declined.

Now, The Foundation was based on the idea of an homogenous imperium with almost no diversity as we still have now on Earth. Only in this way the society could decline with no other center being able to raise. The Foundation as colony provided this diversity, it created an area which had the characteristic of a raising society. Asimov construct is artificial, and not so plausible, but this is how he made possible the civilization restart.

I don't think that Asimov anticipated the actual globalization but in hundreds years we will be in a similar position of homogenous civilization like the imperium he described. This doesn't mean intrinsic decline but ...

When I started to read the foundation series 7 or 8 years ago, I read the prequel first. I don't know if this gave me to much preknowledge of psychohistory to lose some of the fun surprises in the story (anybody who read the main book first who has any comments on this?). Albeit I found Foundation to be one of the best and most enjoyable sci-fi books I've ever read. I later came to know how Asimov had linked the robot series, empire series and foundation series in one complete "universe", and this kind of made me awestruck at the time. I just wished I'd never read them so I could read the books for the first time once more.

Fredrik wrote: "I read the prequel first. I don't know if this gave me to much preknowledge of psychohistory to lose some of the fun surprises in the story (anybody who read the main book first who has any comments on this?) ..."

When I first read the Foundation Trilogy (that would be the 60s), Asimov had not yet written his Prelude to Foundation, and I still haven't read them, so I may not be able to answer your question. I suspect the main thing they spoil is (view spoiler)[the nature and location of the Second Foundation, which is a big mystery from the point of view of the Foundation citizens �� and the reader �� through the latter part of the original trilogy. (hide spoiler)]. If so, I can see how knowing that in advance would spoil some of the fun reading the original triology, because I remember speculating with a fellow science fiction fan at the time. (view spoiler)[The only clue at the time being, "at the opposite end of the galaxy." (hide spoiler)]

I generally think the best reading order for a series is the original publication order. Or maybe that's just me.

Fredrik wrote: "I later came to know how Asimov had linked the robot series, empire series and foundation series in one complete "universe", and this kind of made me awestruck at the time...."

As for the follow-on books that unified it with his The Caves of Steel and Pebble in the Sky novels. I was pretty content with them this three separate universes. I wasn't all that impressed with Foundation's Edge (it felt too much like what it was: a retroactive unification of different stories that didn't really need to be.)

I am curious what the killer-Bs (Benford, Bear and Brin) did with their Foundation's Fear, etc. trilogy, but haven't gotten to them yet. Anyone here try that trilogy out?

G33z3r wrote: "I am curious what the killer-Bs (Benford, Bear and Brin) did with their Foundation's Fear, etc. trilogy, but haven't gotten to them yet. Anyone here try that trilogy out?"

No, I've been burned too badly too many times by other authors writing in a series I loved. Dune, anyone?

G33z3r wrote: "I am curious what the killer-Bs (Benford, Bear and Brin) did with their Foundation's Fear, etc. trilogy, but haven't gotten to them yet. Anyone here try that trilogy out?"
I tried out Bears " Foundation " novel but frankly it didn't feel like you were reading a foundation novel at all. I like to pretend those books never happened.

J.D. wrote: "I've been burned too badly too many times by other authors writing in a series I loved. Dune, anyone?..."

To be honest, I wasn't all that thrilled with what Herbert did with Dune after the first couple.

As a counter-example, I thought Sanderson did a nice job finishing up Jordan's Wheel of Time.

PS In the last decade or so a couple of authors have actually invited others to write stories set in their "universe". Weber comes to mind, (though give me another couple of cups of coffee and I bet I think of a few others! :)

J.D. wrote: "I tried out Bears " Foundation " novel but frankly it didn't feel like you were reading a foundation novel at all...."

I guess that's not too surprising. The Big A and the B-team are several generations apart, and while they are all noted for "hard" science fiction, the B's tend much more towards human drama.

I've only read Bear's. I think it's more character centric & closer to contemporary sf in style and some of the techs & social norms are updated from 50s to 80s-90s.

Deeptanshu wrote: "I tried out Bears " Foundation " novel..."

Xdyj wrote: "I've only read Bear's."

Hmm. So, you both tried the 2nd book of the 3Bs, skipping Benford's. Interesting.

G33z3r wrote: "Deeptanshu wrote: "I tried out Bears " Foundation " novel..."

Xdyj wrote: "I've only read Bear's."

Hmm. So, you both tried the 2nd book of the 3Bs, skipping Benford's. Interesting."
Now that i think about it I believe that i have also read the third book in the series albeit a long time ago.
I much preferred it to Greg bear's work. It was much more in tune with the foundation universe and was a more enjoyable novel overall.

Fredrik wrote: "I read the prequel first. I don't know if this gave me to much preknowledge of psychohistory to lose some of the fun surprises in the story..."
G33z3r wrote: (...) I suspect the main thing they spoil is (view spoiler)[[the nature and location of the Second Foundation, which is a big mystery from the point of view of the Foundation citizens �� and the reader �� through the latter part of the original trilogy.] (hide spoiler)]. If so, I can see how knowing that in advance would spoil some of the fun reading the original triology, because I remember speculating with a fellow science fiction fan at the time.

Actually he didn't spoil anything about "the other thing", because I remember that was a surprise for me too after having read the prequel.

G33z3r wrote: I generally think the best reading order for a series is the original publication order. Or maybe that's just me.

I would concur in most cases. Though I believe it's a major difference whether or not the original author has written the prequel or if it's another writer. I've only read the original Dune novels (tried the prequels, but stopped somewhere in prequel book #2). I would not recommend anybody trying to read Dune to go for the prequel, but to read the original story first.

A writer always knows more than the reader (at least a good writer). And they've probably written down lots of background material to make the book(s) concistent, but that doesn't mean you need to know all this to enjoy the book. The wonder of not knowing is part of the fun.

G33z3r wrote: As a counter-example, I thought Sanderson did a nice job finishing up Jordan's Wheel of Time. (...)

If Sanderson hadn't done it, someone else would have to. I think Robert Jordan had just to many ideas coming to mind to finish it off.

I haven't had the time to finish the Wheel of Time. I started to read the series in 1996 or 1997 and lost the track in book nine or ten. Started rereading it two years ago and currently arrived at book seven. Look forward to read Sanderson's conclusion. I've enjoyed his other works like Elantris and The Mistborn Trilogy.

A little of topic from the book of the month, but it's almost April. :)

Fredrik wrote: "A little of topic from the book of the month, but it's almost April. :) ..."

And time travel falls squarely under the umbrella of SF&F, anyway.

I've also decided to boycott the other books in the Foundation universe written by anyone other than Asimov. And it is entirely because of Dune. I don't know why I read so many of those cursed books by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert, maybe because I just craved more of the history in Dune and hoped to find it outside of Frank Herbert's original books. Sadly, it just didn't quite work. Anyway...

The first time I read Foundation, I started with Foundation and didn't know about the prequels. I started with Foundation and read forward. And then a couple years later I realized there was more! So I started from the first prequel and read all the way through again.

Geezer, I can tell you that they did not mention the true location of Second Foundation in the prequels. Asimov kept that little treasure until he had to share it. He emphasized that it was a mind-blowing secret, but did not reveal the actual location.

I think that Asimov didn't believe in the reality of psychohistory in the long term. I think he did see the possibility to predict, to some extent, the trends of society, in a short term (as far as history is concerned short term, not a single human life's perspective of short term). But he also emphasized that it would lose the effectiveness in the long term as more technologies were developed and as the possibility for fluke personalities increased.

The whole point of Second Foundation was to help push society along according to the Plan, because having the Plan alone wasn't enough. Even Second Foundation, though, was a part of Asimov's and Seldon's greater plan, in my opinion. I think the Plan itself was actually a ruse to distract from the ultimate goal of developing humanity's mental capacity. Foundation and the empire it was supposed to establish was just to distract and focus those who would fear change and mutation so that the mutation was free to develop without opposition until the time was ripe.

(view spoiler)[Asimov had a vision for Gaia. Seldon fell short of that ultimate vision, but he was inspired by his granddaughter's ability. (hide spoiler)] So Seldon pushed most of humanity in one direction, developing the sciences and supposedly society, too. But he was making room for (view spoiler)[humanity to evolve in the true sense of the word. From one existence as individuals, into the collective existence of Gaia. I'm not sure that psychohistory was ever his actual, legitimate goal. He convinced Trantor the encyclopedia was his real goal, so that he could form Foundation. He convinced the Foundation his real goal was to establish a new empire, so he could buy more time for Second Foundation to grow in strength. He convinced Second Foundation his goal was for it to rule the new empire, but it was really to push mankind's evolution so that a ruling class would not be necessary. He was a dirty communist ;)! (hide spoiler)]