Which Fictitious Person Would You Choose to be Real?

I’m warning you up front, that this post probably has limited appeal. I’m answering a question I’ve wondered about for a while.

I think the question is actually pretty good: If you could have one fictitious person be real, who would it be?

But my answer(s) are all based on science fiction I have read or watched. So if you’re not a sci-fi geek, my feelings won’t be hurt if you quit reading right now.

Anyway, I can’t come up with just one. I have four.  Here is the first, and probably the one I’d pick if I had to pick just one:

Hari Seldon

Never heard of him? Not surprising. Well let me tell you.

Hari is a character from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, set many years in the future, when the entire Galaxy is one big empire. Hari invented a science called Psychohistory. It’s not a real science, at least not yet. But I think it could be. And it sure would be helpful, which is why I wish he were around.

For the truly geeky, follow along while I explain it.

Imagine you have a container of gas, like air. There’s a zillion molecules of that gas in there, all zooming around at different speeds, like so many bumper cars, except much smaller, much faster, and in 3 dimensions.

It is impossible to predict exactly how any one molecule will behave. It’s completely random. Yet, with simple gas laws I used to teach to sophomores, we can with a high degree of accuracy, predict how the entire container of gas will behave. If we heat it, squeeze it, pressurize it, let some out, etc., we can tell exactly how it will respond.

Psychohistory treats our civilization like the gas container, where each person is like a molecule. While nobody can predict how any one person’s life will play out, with psychohistory, we can predict how society, in broad terms, will progress. This is kinda what sociologists do today (I think) except in psychohistory it is treated mathematically, like we do the gas laws. In The Foundation, Hari predicted the Galactic Empire would come to an end, and that it would degenerate into a bunch of warring Kingdoms. Then he set about making the conditions right so that the “warring Kingdoms” phase would last a minimum of time. You’ll have to read the books to see how he did. And by the way, they are in the very top of my favorite books list. (They’re short, easy to read, and actually pretty simple--and I reread them every other year or so.)

But psychohistory only works if the people don’t really know about it. They have to be ignorant of its workings, so they respond naturally in all situations--not trying to “out-think” it. But if Hari were alive today, and if psychohistory were a thing, he could predict how our civilization is going to change. Not in the short term necessarily, but overall in the long term.

But he could also possibly effect enough change to push it in a different, hopefully better, direction. Just as he did in the trilogy. In fact, throughout the trilogy, and the sequels which came later, they always refer to the guidance of “the dead hand of Hari Seldon.” Luckily, Hari Seldon was wise, kind, and altruistic. Psychohistory in the hands of an evil genius would be deadly for all.

Which is why Hari was the perfect man to use Psychohistory.

And why the world could really use Hari Seldon today.