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Kevin comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong
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If you were Harry and were trying to get from "how the hell does magic work" to "omnipotent lord of the universe" what would you do?
I think my first step would be to learn how people go about inventing spells.
I would take Rick Cook's approach - look for meta-spells and figure out how to combine them into something Turing-complete. From canon, we already know that spells can operate on spells ('priori incantatem' or something like that), and I'm almost sure that some spells do logical operations.
If that doesn't work out, start making the Philosopher's Stone. I will know that it's possible, and that's half the battle. Once I have the Stone, then the question of 'fastest method to omnipotence' loses its urgency.
(If this is simply not possible for a 1st Year, then I will set my sights lower on the felix/luck potion; Harry has enough money to finance all the ingredients he could possibly waste, and once you have a vat of luck potion, you can spend it on research in the library, random generation of possible recipes, or direct attempts at creating the Stone.)
Really, you should use it to try to discover a more powerful luck potion, then take the more powerful luck potion to try to discover a more powerful luck potion still, until eventually you get a hard-takeoff scenario where ever-more-powerful luck potions are falling from the sky into your hands by pure chance every second.
After the luck-ularity, Harry can just throw a random rock up in the air, and it will hit Lord Voldemort right between the eyes, killing him instantly at the same time the Pioneer probe crashes into an asteroid.
That's already taken care of; if it's luckier to discover a luckier luck potion than the Philosopher's Stone, then that's what I would discover. And of course, by induction, then subsequent consumption will result in even luckier potions (since luck presumably compounds so any subsequent improvements will still be luckier than a PS's discovery).
If there is no luckier potion or the Luckularity would hit a plateau, then I would be better off with the PS and hence the luck and preference would line up. So seeking the PS is the dominant strategy.
You are assuming that the luck from a luck potion tracks the drinker's extrapolated volition, rather than just the luck potion's inventor's idea of a Nice Thing to Happen.
After all, you would rather not win the Quiddich match, if doing so would lead to your defeated opponent dropping out of art school to go hang out in beer halls.
I guess MOR's Harry hasn't realized this yet, but readers of Less Wrong should.
We've seen what happened when Harry tried to invoke Infinite Processing Power spell. It's plausible to assume, that each hard-takeoff setup will fail spectacularly.
For example, Harry will get enough luck to enter nirvana.
You say that like becoming a bodhisattva is a bad thing.
'I vow to save all sentient beings...'
A bodhisattva is someone who deliberately refrains from departing into nirvana, but stays behind in order to save all sentient beings.
A nitpick essential to my joke - having enough luck to enter nirvana is not the same thing as actually entering nirvana.
Bad thing? I can't see the implication. It's hard to imagine that peaceful mind will still be trying to hack magic even for saving all sentient beings, thus it's a failure of sorts. Does that failure imply badness? I don't think so.
Indeed?
Do you want to say that "fail spectacularly" has connotations I'm not aware of? I intended it to mean "fail in unpredictable and confusing way". I'm still puzzled by your reaction.
Thanks, I've corrected typo.
I would look into magic detection spells and see what I could find out about magic from them-- not just studying the spells themselves, but also see if there are subtle things about magic (does it come from somewhere, how fast does it happen) which offer clues about its nature.
Also, can magic be used to increase magic? Follow that with careful thought about the implications of a magical singularity.