Chapter 28: IMO, worst chapter yet. Harry is overpowered, and Hermione's reaction is overdone.

That is just awesome. Made my day! While reading the story i hat to laugh out loudly on almost every third sentence, much to the annoyance of my neighbors. Thats a feat no other story has accomplished so far, not even discworld - which would be the close contender.

I was also happy to learn that i figured out the solution to Harry's sleeping problem right about when it introduced. But i didn't solve the confusing morning riddle.

Is Harry learning how to lose?

Chp 19 is when Harry went through the ordeal with Quirrell to learn how to lose.

Chp 21 he lost the textbook reading contest with Hermione and acted like a whiny sore loser, suggesting that he hadn't really learned much. He acted like such a brat that I had to assume that he'd failed to learn some basic social skills in his solitary homeschooled childhood (e.g., you should at least act like you've lost gracefully, by congratulating the winner and not complaining).

Chp 32 Harry seems to be trying to goad Draco and Hermione into cooperating with each against him in the battle, suggesting that he hopes that they work together to defeat him in the game, for the greater good (of Draco's character and their relationships). It can't happen, because the state of the game demands that Draco cooperate with Harry rather than Hermione in order to have a chance to win, but if Harry was considering it and hoping for it then that's a good sign for his learning.

Chapter 29 - Am I alone in considering this the worst chapter yet (that is, <=29)?

The hacked in "Bill is schizophrenic" was unpleasant. Sure EY wanted to force in a 'conspiracy theory' lesson, but I still just found it distasteful. The remainder of the chapter was just uninspiring and did nothing but reinforce my growing impression that Harry doesn't have what it takes to become an ultimate "Universe Optimising" power. I don't think all of this is due to 'still needs to learn lessons' considerations either.

Ick. I'm going to read the next couple of chapters. Most of the recent comments here have focussed on the the 30,31 chapters so I'm hoping 29 was just an unremarkable interlude.

Another point in chapter 32 that could use some explaining: Why are Harry, Draco, Hermione the only ones in the running for the Christmas wish? Do Quirrell points from battles tend heavily towards the generals? (Though I guess they were all doing especially well in the class anyway...) That, and there's only one Christmas wish, for all seven years; obviously the other years are a bit outside the scope of the story, but with no explanation it still seems a bit strange that noone from those years would even come close.

From Ch. 7:

Draco snarled. "She has some sort of perverse obsession about the Malfoys, too, and her father is politically opposed to us so he prints every word. As soon as I'm old enough to get an erection I'm going to rape that bitch."

Is this a reference to some poorly-written slash fanfic? I'm assuming Eliezer knows that boys of any age can get erections, so it must be making fun of something, but I'm missing a reference.

Similarly with:

Harry burbled on. "I'm delighted to meet you, Mr. Malfoy. Just unutterably delighted. And to be attending Hogwarts in your very year! It makes my heart swoon." Oops. That last part might have sounded a little odd, like he was hitting on Draco or something.

(Ch. 5)

Is this just making fun of Harry/Draco slash in general, or is there a specific reference?

I previously criticized Eliezer's 'Ultimate Mega Crossover' fic on basically the grounds that it makes him/SIAI look bad, and didn't help out the cause much.

Reading through MoR, I made a point of reading the reviews and seeing what non-LW people were saying. I'm pleased that aside from AngryParsley's site stats, many of the reviews expressed interest in LW writings and Eliezer's ideas, and very few any disgust or general opinions of low status. Good job, Eliezer!

The hate that the Dark Lord Potter forum has on MoR is getting more than a bit amusing.

Also, perhaps it's me, but I see the story as a thinly veiled commercial for the author's blog/institute, which breaks the "doing this for pleasure and not profit" fanfiction model (as well as being a subtext that breaks the fourth wall for several readers). The author is almost certainly deriving commercial benefit from J. K. Rowling's intellectual property and his exploitation of the popularity of her fandom by routing eyeballs to his site and building his own personal fame as a voice in the field of AI. I wouldn't be surprised if his story has bumped traffic to his blog/website by an order of magnitude or two. In many regards, this practice is worse than a Cassandra Clare or Jim Bernheimer pitching their original fiction novels on their fanfiction sites, since neither author makes a living off their writing.

This story isn't parody in the traditional sense, so it's possible that a court would consider it as not falling within this protected class of derivative works. Indeed, if the legal hammer were to fall on this story, it could have fallout: consider that a single CAD letter, if sufficiently broad in scope, to the owners of fanfiction.net could effectively shut down the fandom.

As Louie commented upon hearing this: "I just love the fountains of money that have been bursting through [SIAI]'s doors ever since the beginning of this fic". Not.

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.

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.

That was a hard swat at "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas".

As for why Harry has such an exaggerated sense of responsibility, it might be that growing up on science fiction thing. A lot of science fiction is set up so that the hero can have a huge effect in a satisfying way. Perhaps Harry should have balanced it with reading history. On the other hand, he's living in fiction, so maybe he's right for his situation.

Lois McMaster Bujold has described sf as fantasy of political agency [1], and I think she's on to something.

I assume that shutting down Azkaban has a political solution rather than a magical or violent solution. This will be interesting to watch.

Why would Snape ask Harry for his take on Snape's past? One of the underlying premises of the story is that the smarter characters (possibly with the exception of Hermione) always have a deeper plan. Did Snape actually expect to get good advice? To be told that all his choices were correct? To have a reason to be angry at Harry? None of these make huge amounts of sense (to me, at least-- I have trouble keeping track of all the scheming), even though the scene was very emotionally effective.

This is basically my review posted to fanfiction.net-- let me know if there's a problem with reposting such here.

[1] The link goes to quite an interesting speech

Here's my take on what actually happened in the dojo incident described in chp 19.

Voldemort went there in disguise to learn the valuable martial art. He reacted badly to losing so they put him through the ordeal he described. He went along with it because he wanted to learn the martial art. The ordeal did teach him valuable lessons about losing, and he vowed to learn to control his temper and master tactics of ingratiation and supplication to better manipulate others. But he felt angry and humiliated by it (as he expected Harry to be), and also vowed to return and fulfill his revenge fantasies. So after he mastered the martial art and left the dojo, he came back openly as the Dark Lord and killed them to live out his revenge fantasies and to prevent others from learning the skills (keep science secret). He spared one student who had befriended him (and who probably stood up for him during the ordeal, like Draco to Harry), and he had that student spread the version of the tale that he wanted told (to maximize fear while hiding some of his true powers, and to deflect attention away from the value of that martial art).

Chapter 34:

I totally think the "completely wrong ship" alluded to in the author's notes is Hermione/Griphook. It makes sense!

Chapter 33:

I'd come up, before, with the hypothesis that HPMoR Voldemort was actually Necessarily Evil after the fashion of Eliezer's proposed supervillain gambit, but I dismissed it by assuming that Voldemort had crossed the Moral Event Horizon already. This chapter, though, makes it very plausible again via an explicit motivation (and a Shout Out to Foundation, as well). On the other hand, Quirrell could just be playing one level above that explanation.

One thing, though: is it public knowledge that Lucius Malfoy had been a Death Eater? Because it seemed to be a very dangerous thing to say out loud (not that Quirrell need fear Lucius, but that it seems foolhardy to so easily signal that he need not fear him).

Here's what I think will happen:

Zabini stuns himself in the name of Sunshine to create a tie. And here's why:

1) The rest of the school is very partisan about their favorite army, so it's not likely that many are betting on a tie. Zabini (through a proxy or otherwise) put all of his chips on "tie." So he will return to Hell a much richer Prince of Darkness.

1a) "Aftermath" scene: Hogsmeade. Zabini meets his broker. Hogwarts is basically a closed economy, and Zabini has now walked off with the lion's share of the student body's disposable income. He plunks his Bag of Holding on the table. "Take this and convert it to Muggle money. Then go buy unmarked silver bullion..."

2) The three Generals are tied for Quirrell points. Given what we've seen of him in this chapter, Zabini is probably in fourth place, and not too far behind. How many Quirrell points will he get for getting all three generals to play according to his plan? We see Harry and Hermione accepting, and per the Prisoner's Dilemma thing, Harry and Draco had to synchronize their moves ("cooperate") to have a chance against Hermione. This would mean that Draco is also more or less following Zabini's plan. Zabini was able to steer the battle to his personal chosen outcome, so he (as an individual) wins the battle. The betrayal rules+scoring are set up to favor individual objectives rather than army loyalty/collective goals/unity. Zabini has realized this, and acted accordingly.

3) After collecting Quirrell's wish from his come-from-behind victory (which provides a "practical" demonstration of the 2-4-6 Test, since no one, Generals included, expected Zabini to have his own victory conditions), Zabini goes to Dumbledore's office. "Well done, Blaise!" Dumbledore says. "I suppose you're here for your wish..." That is, Dumbledore has offered Zabini a wish if he could steer the battle to a tie, since that would stop a Hogwarts equivalent of a football (soccer) riot, which would be likely if one of the armies won.

4) At the Christmas feast, Dumbledore rises to announce that the three armies are being merged into a Hogwarts Army, and starting at the end of January, the HA will compete in three-way battles with Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Per the experiment mentioned earlier with the "Eagles" and "Rattlers," the Hogwarts students are united against external foes. He and Quirrell allowed the Headmasters of the other schools to watch the battles using Quirrell screens, and their staffs liked the idea. The mock battles use more magical skills and incorporate more students than Quidditch, and are thus a better encouragement to learning. New rules could be applied to future battles. "You may use any magic item you can make (under teacher or senior-student supervision) in your battles, providing it's not dangerous." "You can use any Potion you can make," etc.

Is there an annotated version of this anywhere? I know that the sequences cover most/all the stuff and am reading and have read a lot of the sequences but it seems like it might be fun to read this with descriptions of the maths/science/concepts alongside it as well as all the literary allusion noted.

You know, as I was reading chapter 32, I started thinking about how the three generals had their various weaknesses. Draco is savvy but weak against complexity, Hermione is bright but not exactly street smart, and Harry is clearly brilliant yet arrogant. It was only after I'd read it all that I realised each had fallen prey to their own specific weakness. Hermione was surprised by the combined 'For Sunshine!' Gambit against her, Draco didn't realise he was with the wrong Patil, and Harry encouraged earlier betrayal amongst his crew in order to protect him in the final battle, only to be surprised at the end. I figure this was probably a deliberate bit of writing on Eliezer's account, in which case I just want to say-Good job!

I'm guessing that Blaise will shoot himself in the name of Sunshine, tying all the scores. That seems like the kind of thing Dumbledore would plot. It makes the most sense from Eliezer's point of view too, in terms of leading the story in a more interesting direction.

Ch. 32. I don't know what Eliezer will have Blaise do, but if I were in that position I'd flip a coin between Harry and Draco, get rewarded by the winner and counterfactually mug the loser. (Hoping, of course, that that Draco wins, since Harry is clearly more likely to pay off a counterfactual mugger.)

ETA: That is, of course, assuming that Blaise isn't working for Dumbledore (which his chapter-ending line would seem to point to).

Hm, inconsistency: I just noticed that Quirrell says in chapter 16 that Quirrell points will determine generalship of armies. That seems to have been abandoned at some point?

Regarding the author's notes for chapter 32: I assume the complexity class you're looking for at the end there would be something like PromiseNP? Also, the trick really is more general than that, seeing as you can actually use it to do anything in PSPACE.

Chapter one, when Petunia is talking about how she wanted Lily to use magic to make her prettier:

"And Lily would tell me no, and make up the most ridiculous excuses, like the world would end if she were nice to her sister, or a centaur told her not to - the most ridiculous things, and I hated her for it. And when I had just graduated, I was going out with this boy, Vernon Dursley, he was also fat and he was the only boy who would talk to me in college. And he said he wanted children, and that his first son would be named Dudley. And I thought to myself, what kind of parent names their child Dudley Dursley? It was like I saw my whole future life stretching out in front of me, and I couldn't stand it. And I wrote to my sister and told her that if she didn't help me I'd rather just -"

Just excuses? Or...? Dun dun dun...

Up to chapter 31 now. I don't understand how Eliezer is going to paint the central conflict. Granted, Quirrell is awesome and has had several successes already. But the main motivation of the Death Eaters is blood purism (as in canon), and Harry has already proved it to be false, and our Quirrell is rational enough to agree with the proof if he hears it. So to make the central conflict happen Eliezer has to invent something else, something secret, that makes Quirrell tick.

For "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality", I'd like to make predictions that can be eventually verified publicly in time, but won't tempt the author to change things to prevent it from coming true (as is the usual way of serial writers on the Internet). I'm therefore encrypting my prediction with the md5 hash function, so that afterwards it can be verified. (One difficulty is that I have the power to edit this comment; is there a way to make it obvious if I've done so, or store it in a less editable space?) Anyway, here goes:

July 16 (after Chapter 31): 28f9e3b2165344763c35514b473cb347

620 comments is very unwieldy, especially when threaded. A new post per chapter would be less likely to cause brains like mine (that is, unlike Eliezer and Harry's, who seem to have brains built like the TARDIS) to go into terminal explosive overload.

Chapter 30-31: Was there a more sophisticated basic idea than appearing to be incompetent, then playing possum? I'd have expected one of the other two armies to expend a second (double tap) sleep spell on the downed, given that Neville came up with the same tactic later on.

Also, nice touch writing Neville as Bean without using a sledgehammer on the parallel.

ETA: It took me a bit to understand Draco's particular revelation: that Quirrell made sure to place all the other smartest students (and the other candidate generals mentioned in Ch. 29) on Sunshine.

I wonder what Arithmancy is in this universe (or in the original Potterverse, for that matter).

Eric Raymond (this guy) recommends Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

I should really have mentioned this back in the appropriate chapter, but..

Remember how Harry complains that adding (consistent) time-travel makes the universe uncomputable? Leaving aside how I'm not exactly convinced of that myself, I thought I should point out that such consistent time-travel has recently been experimentally demonstrated.

Have a look at http://arxiv4.library.cornell.edu/abs/1005.2219 . It was published way too late for Harry to read it, unfortunately. :P

Chapter 28: I wonder what happens if Harry realizes he's living in fiction, and everything he's dealing with is made of concepts rather than atoms.

Which leads me to think about the people who say that if they found they were living in a simulation, they'd try to get out. Unless the simulation is very similar to the substrate, would it be possible to get out while remaining yourself in any sense?

Back to the story: This might be an argument for checklists: Harry and Hermione should review precautions before they try anything new, should they be doing it without adult supervision. It's possible that the adults should be doing it, too.

However, the story is a good reminder that it can be hard to remember the relevant thing, even if you're very smart.

I don't think Hermione is over-reacting-- remember that they're doing stuff which is not just more potentially dangerous than children that age are permitted to do in our culture, it's more dangerous than what most adults do.

Wow. I liked 28! Well, I liked all but 1 of the previous 27 too but this one was brilliant. Just the right balance of overconfident recklessness combined with not being a stubborn fool when realizing his mistake. By right balance I mean for realism given the character. Harry being such an emotionally unstable prick was a little irritating until he started showing clear signs of being aware of his emotional foibles and the rather important ability to take care of important relationships despite his weakness.

Harry's knuckles had gone white on his wand by the time he stopped trying to Transfigure the air in front of his wand into a paperclip. It wouldn't have been safe to Transfigure the paperclip into gas, of course, but Harry didn't see any reason why it would be unsafe the other way around. It just wasn't supposed to be possible. But why not? Air was as real a substance as anything else...

Well, maybe that limitation did make sense. Air was disorganized, all the molecules constantly changing their relation to each other. Maybe you couldn't impose a new form on substance unless the substance was staying still long enough for you to master it, even though the atoms in solids were also constantly vibrating all the time...

The more Harry failed, the colder he felt, the clearer everything seemed to become.

The cold feeling should have given him an idea! He has a spell for lowering temperature. Unless it is, for example, helium a gas with sufficiently low temperature tends to prefer to go by the name 'solid' (Depending on cooling speed probably isolating one specific component of air). That gives him a two step process for transfiguring gas into paperclips.

Mind you, Harry most likely doesn't have the magical ability right now to lower temperature that effectively. Perhaps that's where Hermione's idea to actually practice magic comes into play!

Instant godhood by inventing nano-tech? That doesn't seem to leave much scope for names for all the levels of power that are far ahead of mere non-replicating nano. Perhaps demi-god? Even that seems to be overstating things. It seems to be on a par with the potential of the most advanced magic applied intelligently but without Harry's munchkin mentality.

A thought regarding Alzheimer's cures: If you are playing around with creating an Alzheimer''s cure with transfiguration and find yourself thinking more clearly all of a sudden be very afraid. You have probably absorbed some of the transfigured substance. Most chemical cures for Alzheimer's will also improve abstract and creative thought in healthy humans.

Shouldn't Slughorn be trying to get Harry into his social circle very soon after Harry's substantial victory over Snape?

Chapter 27

A lot of folks seem to make a big deal out of Harry not understanding Snape's "racist" comment. Which is very strange to me, as I had no idea it had that sort of implication (though it's obvious in retrospect), and (while I'm no expert) I'm much more familiar with the HP canon than Harry is. "Mudblood" always sounded more to me like making fun of someone for being poor.

What happened to the Harry from Chapter 6?

"Um," Harry said, "can we go get the healer's kit now?"

McGonagall paused, and looked back at him steadily. "And if I say no, it's too expensive and you won't need it, what happens?"

Harry's face twisted in bitterness. "Exactly what you're thinking, Professor McGonagall. Exactly what you're thinking. I conclude you're another crazy adult I can't talk to, and I start planning how to get my hands on a healer's kit anyway."

A time turner is a superior to a healer's kit in very nearly every way and by a huge margin. Yet all Harry does when he loses free access to his time turner he sulks a little and that's all. He doesn't plan at all! I don't even recall one line of introspection on the subject! It takes very little ingenuity to to react:

"Harry, give me your time t..."

shit. shit. shit. Activate time turner. Escape. Then, he can spend five minutes and think up a dozen ways to retain time travel capability. Let me see...

• Create a fake...
  • Lie to Hermione to get assistance?
  • Transfiguration not likely to work, given the teacher responsible.
• assume that wizarding security is crap and guess (correctly) that he can probably steal one if needed...
• actually leave Hogwarts because the time turner is more important and money can buy a better education anyway.
• Ask Fred and George to discover a way for him to hide, to give him more time to plan.
• Leave Hogwarts for a week.
  • Fill Gringots with silver.
  • Use money to buy a time turner on the black market
  • Also buy that hand-light that Malfoy bought.
  • And in general a stockpile of the most powerful and useful artifacts available.
  • And the best trunk that can be found anywhere or created for cash.
  • Return to Hogwarts if they will accept him after the week is up. (Or, for that matter, do it in the holidays. There isn't that much of a rush.)
  • If circumstances demand, buy an education from one (or all) of the other schools.
  • Hire all the best tutors available for all subjects and use them to supplement school education with or without the cooperation of any teacher at the school, further insulating him from the ability of the teachers to f@#% with him or take his stuff.

Really... the best Harry can come up with is to say "that's not fair"? WTF?