Psychohistory

This blog would be incomplete without some discussion of psychohistory. I should begin with a disclaimer; if you, dear reader, are unfamiliar with the science of "psychohistory", this is no surprise- unless you have read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and understand the reference. Psychohistory is a fictional science formulated about 22,000 years in our future, according to Isaac Asimov's fictional robot/empire/foundation historical universe, and incorporates the notion that human behavior can be reduced to mathematical equations. One of the primary principles involved is that while the behavior of an individual human being is extremely difficult to predict- with increasingly large numbers of humans being incorporated into the system, we have increasing ability to predict accurately. Those with basic knowledge of statistics should recall the law of large numbers; a similar principle applies here, with the average behavior of a large number of repetitions more accurately predictable than a single event. "Wait a minute," you might exclaim. "There is nothing new here!" In this you would be correct. Indeed, the basic principle of psychohistory is derived directly from economic theory, which in turn is largely the product of the Enlightenment (18th century). Economics does involve the representation of human behavior in the (now global) marketplace in mathematical form. A primary principle of economics is the notion that while an individual human being is essentially unpredictable, within a large system we have the "extremes" represented by different humans' personalities and the like cancelling each other, so that we can with increasing accuracy model the system based on the behavior of the "average" human being. Economics- and the areas of finance and accounting- are thus of particular interest to mathematicians, not merely because of the amount of math involved in these areas, but because of the ability to express the behavior of human beings in mathematical form, and potentially their future behavior.