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: ata 29 May 2010 05:35:37AM *  9 points [-]

I think that, in the first few chapters, Harry did not give enough credence to the hypothesis that he was simply insane and hallucinating. I think, given the observations he had at the time (his mom claimed her sister was a witch; he got a letter implying the same; a woman levitated his dad and turned into a cat), he should have at least seriously considered it. Certainly those pieces of information are some evidence for magic, but considering what that hypothesis entails — existing scientific knowledge about physics (even at the level of abstraction that we experience directly) is so completely wrong that it's actually possible to make the universe understand human words or intentions, or there's this incredibly advanced technology that looks like it's violating the laws of physics, and it's existed for thousands of years and apparently everyone has forgotten how it works — I think an honest rationalist would have to look into the "I'm cuckoo" hypothesis.

Comment author: gwern 03 December 2012 11:46:43PM 3 points [-]

If he was having completely full-blown auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations (note that this is fairly unusual, for example schizophrenia apparently usually only manifests hallucinations in one modality), then what exactly could he do about it or even how would he test it?

Comment author: ata 04 December 2012 08:30:58AM 0 points [-]

Yes, me[2010-05] did not think of that :) I agree now