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The Last Question is a short story that was written by Isaac Asimov in 1956. It was Asimov’s favorite among the short stories he wrote, and is generally agreed to be one of the best science fiction short stories ever written. I stumbled across it about two weeks ago via Digg, and decided to give it a read.
Summary: It is interesting and touches on some deep topics in physics and religion simultaneously. It’s classic Asimov and as such it will probably haunt me for a long while (but not forever).
This is the sort of story that can’t be hinted at without giving too much of the fun away, so I’ll leave a plot outline out of this review. The ending, possibly better termed as a punch line, is delicious and (at least for me) completely unexpected.
In addition, the courage that Asimov had to publish this story (repeatedly) in the era in which it was written is astounding. It is totally blasphemous, and perfect in every regard.
So, if you haven’t already read the story here are two, possibly copyright-infringing, places where you can get it: Text and Audio (from the same site). I’ll meet you in the comments for all the spoiler-inducing discussion.
Note: If those links are gone when you read this in the archives, you should have no problem using the Planetary AC Google to find yourself a copy. Either that or go to a used book store and pick up just about any of Asimov’s anthologies.
21 responses so far ↓
1 Carloc8768 // Oct 16, 2007 at 12:30 pm
It is the consensus of my Sci-Fi class that Microvac could never contain all of the known information in the universe because early Man had no means by which to record the nuanced information and experiences that defined him. Therefore, how could Microvac [God] provide this important information?
2 Cam // Oct 16, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Wow. That’s an excellent insight. I’ll have to think hard about that one.
3 Soleyu // Oct 17, 2007 at 3:36 am
Two things, one, the AC could of course contain all known information, what you are talking about is unknown information, known by definition is recorded or remembered, so the AC shouldn’t have any problem getting it.
Now All information is differetn’t, but if we take into account the idea that the AC is God, then by definition it could well possibly gather the information by travelling back in time or if energy could somehow be distilled into information all information could be known (God is supposed to be all-knowing after all.)
Or maybe it could simulate an universe therefore gathering inmense quantities of information, there are very cool theories about simulating universes, hell we could be simulations. Or perhaps metaphysics and spirituality would be the answer, after all if all minds joined the AC it could gather the minds of the already dead, since its all energy and recreate them. With the kind of power of that machine anything could be possible, as demostrated by the story.
The story was awesome by the way, great ending. So infinity is but a loop, of dead and rebirth, my only gripe would be the lack of variety in the loop, because by definiton all cultures would need to get to the AC, perhaps in the same way.
Just my two cents. Oh and if I double posted sorry, I pressed enter by mistake.
4 Cam // Oct 17, 2007 at 8:21 am
Ok. I’ve been thinking hard about Carloc’s comments. Here’s what I think…
@Carloc:
It’s Science Fiction :) The story logically follows from our own history, to a huge computer that solves the problem of harvesting the sun directly for power. From there successive generations of the computer solve interstellar travel, miniaturization, and how to convert human life into pure energy.
If any of these steps could be described in sufficient detail, and if those details made logical sense to us today then they would become science and leave the realm of fiction.
It’s not a Science Fiction writer’s job to figure out HOW to do something, only to conceive of WHAT could happen in the future, extrapolated from today, or even an alternative version of today.
They inspire and challenge today’s scientists to turn the ideas into reality.
5 Cam // Oct 17, 2007 at 8:29 am
@Soleyu: I agree with your statements about the unknown information. However, would ALL the information in the universe be required to reverse entropy? Presumably it could be done by simply having a complete understanding of physics. To obtain that understanding might require witnessing the end of the universe, but it might not require collecting all of the possible “unknown information” that ever existed.
Also, the concept of going back in time seems to me to contradict the idea of ever-marching entropy. I haven’t put my finger on it yet, but if they could go back in time, why restart the universe after the end of time?
If all the living beings have fused into one mind by the end of the story, and that mind can travel back in time…. Then why not just go back to the beginning of the current universe and live all over again as this new entity? Sure history might be changed, but as this super being wouldn’t care. Paradoxes aside, the time-travel idea doesn’t seem to be in line with the spirit of the story.
6 Soleyu // Oct 17, 2007 at 8:53 am
@Cam: True, all information wouldn’t be strictly necessary to reverse entropy, but then again perhaps it is, after all to reverse entropy would require huge amounts of energy and if the “information” is energy then it would be required.
About the time travel, yeah I agree with you Time Travel tends to make things fuzzy, perhaps thats what AC did and is now living as our god, but to tell the truth it doesn sit well with me either. I was just throwing theories up in the air, and well time travel was one that came to mind. :p
Anyway, what you said to Carloc is true, its science fiction after all, although it is fun to try to make sense out of complicated future technology it will undoubtly drive you semi mad (take it from me, I am kinda crazy right now, or perhaps that’s what not sleeping for three days does to you heh). Still what do you think was the purpouse of the story? besides entertain of course, what was Asimov trying to tell us?
7 Cam // Oct 17, 2007 at 9:14 am
@Soleyu: You asked “What do you think was the purpose of the story? Besides entertain of course, what was Asimov trying to tell us?”
That’s a tough question. Considering the era in which it was written, I think he was trying to tell his contemporaries that computers are going to be much more important than they can imagine. I think he was trying to open the world’s eyes to just how large a part of our daily world computers would become. If this is so, then he’s right so far.
I think The Entropy Idea was just an epic-scale concept upon which to hinge his ideas of just how intimate we will become with our machines, which was a favorite theme of his of course.
Like many of Asimov’s stories, what is presented plainly in front of you is rarely the true lesson he’s trying to teach. Then again, there are many of his stories that I’ve never found deeper meaning in, and my ideas above are a bit of a stretch.
His goal here might have been simply to entertain… though I doubt it greatly.
8 Marc C // Nov 19, 2007 at 3:26 pm
You all have great insights into the story and it has furthered my interest in this awesome story.
I have one question though, hopefully one of you can give your view on it if you are still reading these comments.
If AC created the universe, what created the first universe? Was it another AC which oversaw the creation of a new AC or by some completely lucky creation?
9 Cam // Nov 19, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Marc,
I think the point of the story is that the AC figured out how to reverse entropy and thus gave the universe a re-birth. What caused it to begin in the first place is a great question, but one that I doubt anyone can answer any better than what came before the big bang?
However, if anyone else has an idea please feel free to share it. My vote is for spontaneous combustion from nothing.
10 Captain Ned // Nov 27, 2007 at 1:38 am
Would it help if AC’s last command was stated in its original Latin, namely Fiat Lux?
AC is G-d is AC.
The timeless period between the last mind of Man merging with AC and the re-Genesis of the universe is AC’s apotheosis. AC has become G-d and can now recreate Genesis.
11 JohnB // Dec 9, 2007 at 10:58 pm
It seems to me as an admitted atheist, Asimov was basicly spoofing creationists. This story is Genesis with a computer instead of an almighty being. If they react negatively toward it they are in fact arguing against their own beliefs about the origin of the universe.
12 Me // Jan 25, 2008 at 5:06 am
It seems to me as an admitted atheist, Asimov was basicly spoofing creationists. This story is Genesis with a computer instead of an almighty being. If they react negatively toward it they are in fact arguing against their own beliefs about the origin of the universe.
Well, Asimov regularly wrote about the increasing complexity of computers, and mankind being outstripped (read I, Robot…and then help me hunt down Will Smith and everyone involved in the movie).
There are a couple of very obvious motifs. First is the circular nature of time, both in the short narratives and the return to creation. That’s a typically Native American writing motif.
Second, of course, is the constant fear of mortality. Why would one fear something beyond our lifespan? Yet we do…unless it takes extra work to keep from screwing over the next generation. Why should we be bothered to pick up that wrapper, or stop using coal, or try to balance the deficit…
My favorite is probably the repetition of behavior. Society is a wheel that keeps coming to the same spot, but as the story progresses they actually understand less and less with each return. We let the progress of technology flow by without caring how it works, unless American Idol is interrupted.
13 Asthaloth // Apr 23, 2008 at 5:19 pm
As a person that is both Faithful and fears Entropy above all things, this story is utterly. Crushing, to me.
Not in a “Woe is me, for Asimov has destroyed my faith” way that I imagine some would assume, but in a… “Yes. Yes, that is perfect.” way.
If any of that makes sense?
My apologies, I am terrible at explaining myself.
14 Siphonix // Apr 27, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I agree with many things stated by previous posters here. I’ve read almost all of Asimov’s short stories, novels, and a great amount of his non-fiction over the years. “The Last Question” was one of the most memorable stories for me and I’ve re-read it many times.
I like to think that the Good Doctor was simply asking himself a question: If there could be a God, in the sense of an entity being ‘all-knowing, all-wise, and omnipotent’, where might it come from? And I think the answer he’s postulating in this story is that such an entity could come from technological progress itself. In fact, it would be the ‘ultimate product’ of accumulated technology progression. I think it’s a highly imaginative way of ‘accounting for a God-like being’ which avoids any conventional religious predispostion in order to do it.
In a wider sense, this is very much like saying ‘humans ultimately wind up creating God’, and the story certainly leads you to believe you’d be stuck with a circular, cyclical loop, where ‘it must have happened before and so it will happen again’ (much like the ‘closed universe’ theory, with many adherents in the ‘50s, where everything starts with a ‘Big Bang’, followed by expansion, later contraction, and then everything starts up again with another ‘Bang’.).
You also see in this story how humans are described as progressively moving towards ‘fusing’ with their machine creations, and, long before the end of the story, you’re dealing with humans who are evidently so different from the ones we know and who are living in an altogether unrecognizable plane of existence than anything we can relate to today. Back in the ‘50s, the possibility (and fear) of humans someday ‘ becoming joined’ or fusing with machines (or at least machine parts) was becoming a well-established SF convention, although I can’t think of any other stories I read from back then which put quite the same depth of a ‘spin’ on that concept!
I don’t recall more than 4 or 5 short stories written by Asimov that deal with the ‘Multivac’ computer (although some sound like such a computer-based, centralized information operating system is ‘assumed’, running in the background), but in the space of this one single story, he certainly takes that primitive unit through to an ‘ultimate conclusion’!
In later years, I often thought that, with the ‘Multivac’ idea, Asimov had accidentally foreshadowed the ‘Internet’, although I’ve never seen him credited with this. After all, in his stories, Multivac is presented as a computer system which is actually the repository for the sum of all human information and knowledge. Is this not what the modern Internet of today is, and, logically, would probably be working towards? This isn’t bad thinking for 1956, from someone banging out stories on a manual typewriter, his work area and hands always dirty from changing typewriter ribbons and carbon paper! I sometimes wonder if the Internet might, in years to come, one day achieve a kind of ‘self-consciousness’, in and of itself!
And are not things like ‘Wikipedia’ working towards goals such as being an all-encompassing ‘on-line’ encyclopedia-type of reference tool? Of course, Asimov also had his ‘Encyclopedia Galactica’ as a plot device running through his Foundation story series, which could certainly be viewed as a far-in-the-future off-shoot of what the Multivac idea started out to be.
I hope this story never becomes ‘lost’ in the SF-saturated world of today and tomorrow. Make sure you ‘pass it down’ to the youngsters!
15 kjersti // May 9, 2008 at 11:53 pm
so i read this story and think it is very good. this author has certainly written this from pure inspiration! he collected science and religion and mashed the together beatifully, in such a way few could argue, and many wonder. he forsaw the slow change of mankind from human to machine. I mean, how many of us would die without expresso makers (i wouldn’t, i don’t drink coffee :) ) or microwaves, or cell phones, or the internet? (i could continue, but does anyone else want to add to the list?) a while ago i was talking to my mom about how addicting we are to cell phones. i joked that one day your infants will be implanted with communicators at a small fee. how true this will probably be! i think he wrote this to make us think, not about any one topic but about many. i mean, we’re so dependant. is that human nature, to be obsessively depentant? what a disaster if there was a global power outage. and so many people have to pick a fight about what is true, religion or science? religion seems to make anything possible if we have faith, and science doesn’t believe it as far as it can throw it. but i guess i should stop babbling on. i hope somebody understood the idea that i attemped to put to words. that this story is wonderful inspiration with a little of every problem thrown in and eventually, in this story’s case, is solved in a weird freakish way.
16 poxy // May 12, 2008 at 5:08 am
This story is pure genious for its time. Especially if you consider all the jabs he is making at religion. Asimov being atheist provided a great satire to argue his case. He makes great contrast between science and religion: God made man in his own image (man fuses with multivac and creates the universe, and consequently man), man’s blind faith in God (what else have you?) regardless of the circumstance of their life. And the best yet he ultimately ’says’ that man creates God, so that he (man) may believe in God to look after man and all the problems he creates.
These arguments he recreates in other stories, (ie. in The Foundation, where nuclear science is considered holy and magical by the barbaric worlds surrounding terminus). Anything advanced can seem superhuman, such as the phenomena of the world observed by early man, who had no means of explaining the circumstance of the world they inhabited.
The heroes he creates for his stories always win using comon sense and logic and they oppose those that are stubborn and reckless.
Anyway theres nothing wrong with being religious, so long as you know why.
17 aliva // Aug 8, 2008 at 9:05 pm
First, sorry for my english. I think it’s a awesome story but there is something I still can’t get: the death of a human being means entropy reaching its maximum, as we live our bodies run down. And if VJ-23X and his/her friend are immortal its because they find out how to revert entropy? OK being immortal means stopping entropy not reverting entropy but basically is the same thing.
18 Siphonix // Aug 9, 2008 at 12:42 pm
The death of a human being, if by ‘biologically natural causes’, could be viewed as that individual organism having reached a state of ‘maximum entropy’ for itself, since that organism has ‘reached its end point’. But if the Galactic AC solved the ‘problem of immortality’ for human organisms, it still doesn’t mean it has solved the ‘problem of reversing entropy’, as entropy is still operating in the background, with respect to the Universe as a whole. All quantum energy is still running down, towards an ‘Ultimate Zero’ point.
As part of VJ-23X and MQ-17J’s discussion, MQ-17J says:
“Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.”
“Yet you wouldn’t want to abandon life, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, “Not yet. I’m by no means old enough. How old are you?”
“Two hundred twenty-three. And you?”
“I’m still under two hundred. –”
To emphasize, MQ-17J says “Not yet.” This implies that, although an ‘option of immortality’ has become available for humans, the option is never excercised because, at some point, each human will ultimately choose their time to end their individual existence. Eventually, everyone must get ’sick of living’ (they get bored?).
In any event, entropy in the largest, Universal sense, isn’t ’solved’ yet, at this stage, and it certainly hasn’t been ‘reversed’.
19 The Yellow Scientist // Sep 16, 2008 at 8:11 am
I certainly think we gotta “Make sure you ‘pass it down’ to the youngsters!” coz after all it will be “they” who will be the ones to make it all “happen”.
Let them read the Bible/Quran/Torah, the “pagan” myths (Greek/Roman/Norse/Chinese/Japanese/Indian/African/what-have-you) and then make them read this one LAST. It’s The Last Question after all.
They don’t even have to subscribe to any particular belief as long as you make ‘em Think!
20 Ben // Nov 20, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Do you think that Assimov was suggesting that life is cyclical?
21 Cam // Nov 20, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I personally don’t think that Asimov is suggesting that Ben, but it’s an interesting idea.
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