gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Unnamed 27 May 2010 12:10AM

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Comment author: topynate 27 June 2010 01:22:40AM 10 points [-]

I just read Chapter 27. My thoughts:

"Mr. Bester" - great reference.

Harry is firmly on the 'get absolute power' path. Probably he still thinks he's being cute or knowing when he talks about becoming God. His resolution not to become the next Dark Lord doesn't look too healthy now, though.

Harry seems incapable of seeing the flaws in a moral system he apparently acquired by reading science fiction and fantasy, barring almost being Sectumsemprad by a very angry wizard. Why does he think that having read books with monomyth plots is sufficient reason to try to act like the heroes of such books - what is he, eleven years old? At the same time, he understands and can nervelessly put to use Quirrell's very subtle lesson in levels of deception. Very odd, that.

Is one of the reasons Quirrell set up those Occlumency lessons that Harry would discover for himself "how reproducible human thoughts were when you reset people back to the same initial conditions and exposed them to the same stimuli" - and thereby come to treat humans as simple machines that one can use like puppets? As a strategy to bring someone over to the Dark Side, that's brilliant.

Then we get to Harry being placed in the same conditions as Lily Potter, and reacting differently - more humanely. Because he reads science fiction! That's outrageous. Surely this kind of narrative based morality, where you imagine what the good protagonist would do and then do that, is going to be a piece of cake for Quirrell to subvert.

Comment author: gwern 29 June 2010 09:50:50AM 5 points [-]

Is one of the reasons Quirrell set up those Occlumency lessons that Harry would discover for himself "how reproducible human thoughts were when you reset people back to the same initial conditions and exposed them to the same stimuli" - and thereby come to treat humans as simple machines that one can use like puppets? As a strategy to bring someone over to the Dark Side, that's brilliant.

Indeterminate at this point. (By which I mean, even if Eliezer didn't intend Quirrel to have those reasons, he could easily make Quirrel have had those reasons.)

The reasons given earlier are quite enough to justify the lessons: Quirrel doesn't want Harry to be easily scanned by either Snape or Dumbledore for obvious reasons, and once he threw his hat in the ring, a neutral third party was the only viable option - and such a neutral third party can only remain neutral by being Obliviated since anyone in the know about Voldemort is, eo ipso, a member of one faction or another.