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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread
Update: Please post new comments in the latest HPMOR discussion thread, now in the discussion section, since this thread and its first few successors have grown unwieldy (direct links: two, three, four, five, six, seven).
As many of you already know, Eliezer Yudkowsky is writing a Harry Potter fanfic, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, starring a rationalist Harry Potter with ambitions to transform the world by bringing the rationalist/scientific method to magic. But of course a more powerful Potter requires a more challenging wizarding world, and ... well, you can see for yourself how that plays out.
This thread is for discussion of anything related to the story, including insights, confusions, questions, speculation, jokes, discussion of rationality issues raised in the story, attempts at fanfic spinoffs, comments about related fanfictions, and meta-discussion about the fact that Eliezer Yudkowsky is writing Harry Potter fan-fiction (presumably as a means of raising the sanity waterline).
I'm making this a top-level post to create a centralized location for that discussion, since I'm guessing people have things to say (I know I do) and there isn't a great place to put them. fanfiction.net has a different set of users (plus no threading or karma), the main discussion here has been in an old open thread which has petered out and is already near the unwieldy size that would call for a top-level post, and we've had discussions come up in a few other places. So let's have that discussion here.
Comments here will obviously be full of spoilers, and I don't think it makes sense to rot13 the whole thread, so consider this a spoiler warning: this thread contains unrot13'd spoilers for Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality up to the current chapter and for the original Harry Potter series. Please continue to use rot13 for spoilers to other works of fiction, or if you have insider knowledge of future chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
A suggestion: mention at the top of your comment which chapter you're commenting on, or what chapter you're up to, so that people can understand the context of your comment even after more chapters have been posted. This can also help people avoid reading spoilers for a new chapter before they realize that there is a new chapter.
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Comments (866)
A thought: some of Voldemort's followers were from Easter Europe. I wonder what the odds that they had support from the other side of the Iron Curtain were?
Now that I think about it, there's no reason that there should be a tight correspondence between wizard and muggle political boundaries.
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).
I believe canon states that Lucius was tried in the post-Voldemort purges & Lucius's defense was that he had been under the Imperius curse.
EDIT: The Harry Potter wikia, which ought to know, seems to agree: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Lucius_Malfoy#First_Wizarding_War
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.
Predictions?
Regarding the note of confusion Harry feels in Chapter 3: the Killing Curse "strikes directly at the soul", but in Voldemort's case it burned his body. More likely he never cast it at Harry Potter, and the burnt hulk they found wasn't him. He learned about the prophecy and, being smart, changed his plans rather than risk fulfilling it.
And the Source of Magic is a UFAI that optimizes the world into stories.
I hope all my predictions turn out wrong. What I want most from this story is to go on being surprised.
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.
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.
Chp 33 provides more support for this take on chp 32. Draco & Hermione threaten to cooperate against Harry if he accepts traitors, Harry openly proclaims that he'll accept traitors and challenges them to cooperate, and Quirrell is surprised by Harry's response. This makes the most sense if Harry is thinking outside the game and seeing his tactic as win-win: either he gets Draco & Hermione to cooperate (win in life), or they fail to cooperate and he has an advantage in the battle (win in the game).
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!
Draco -> Terran
Hermione -> Zerg
Harry -> Protoss
?
Are you mad? You are assigning the happiness & sunshine army general to the Zerg, and the general of chaos to the Protoss?
I'm starting to think you aren't actually a Starcraft player.
I went by frozenchicken's words rather than by my (single-player and replay-watching only) knowledge of Starcraft. "Clearly brilliant yet arrogant" is a lock for Protoss, and "bright but not exactly street smart" cannot be Terran.
Now, chaotic fighting indeed doesn't fit with the Protoss at all. But Hermione's strategy is by far the one that most parallels a hive-mind, and for all we know the semi-sentient Zerg really are all happy-go-lucky on the inside.
Not sure about the match, but this is definitely something for Eliezer to think about!
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.
And I think that would make Blaise the quadruple agent, with Dumbledore as the fourth faction, and Quirrell aware of the entire thing, masterminding his own little stanford prison experiment in order to achieve whatever ends he's ultimately aiming for.
It was interesting to see how deeply Harry got into his "General Chaos" role in this light. (Also, I think Ch. 32 was the first time I've laughed out loud over the story in a while. It was getting pretty serious and this was way more fun. The "vader/emperor voices"... I was busting up! I think this kind of hilarity at the beginning is part of why the story took off the way it did.)
Plotwise, I've been wondering lately if Eliezer might be laying the groundwork for Voldemort to turn out to actually be the good guy and maybe Harry's true challenge as a protagonist will be to recognize that rationalist!Voldemort will actually turn out to be good for the world, and deserves to be supported. I could image the army lessons turning out to have a positive global outcome if they ended in the right way, which would add a bit of support to this theory.
This is how one of Eliezer's early stories turned out: "The Sword of Good".
(There are some traces of that story in MoR - Harry early on not engaging in moral relativism is similar to the hero's final understanding of the evil of the status quo of the fantasy world. But ultimately I think Quirrelmort will be evil. Voldemort killing the entire dojo and sparing only his friend is a mortal sin and Quirrel does not exhibit the kind of heroic remorse necessary to make up for mass & serial murder. Which reminds me, we don't know who Voldemort killed to get the Horcrux on Pioneer. A security guard, probably.)
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).
You don't even need to flip the coin; just tell Harry you did. As Harry isn't actually Omega, this will work just as well (assuming you don't act differently)
Request reason for downvote; Off-topic? Incorrect (e.g. not utility maximising)? Unclear? Sorry for whatever it was.
That you "don't act differently" doesn't protect you from an inference from your motive.
But Harry's inference will be the same regardless, as the evidence he gets doesn't differ between,
If you are the sort of person who would do that Harry will assume that you lie if presented with that evidence unless you also successfully fool Harry as to what sort of person you are (and presumably he will default to not trusting you if unsure). Otherwise you are just wasting your time.
Assume that Draco and Harry both value victory at $1000. Now if you demand $800 from the winner, the loser "would have" gained only $200 in the counterfactual case, so he will pay you $200 at most. So you could have just demanded $1000 minus epsilon from the winner. We could probably prove a theorem that says counterfactual mugging can't help you extract more of the surplus economic value that you create.
Excellent point! This is what I get for posting in haste.
ETA: However you can extract more than $1000 if you assume that at least one of Harry and Draco would rather the other of them win than Hermione. No counterfactuals needed.
Judging by the Author's Notes, my guess is that the final result is a three-way tie caused by Blaise self-terminating in the name of Sunshine.
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.
Yes, that was stated in a previous chapter.
Chapter 32. Arg, it's all so clear to me now. Neville is not really out of the game. Of course Harry learned the lesson that he needed to trust people, and he could trust Neville if anyone, and everyone will love Neville having a true crowning moment of awesome here.
But how can Neville come back? Without digging out the exact quote, I remember multiple characters shooting Neville specifically to make sure he stayed dead.
It's been hypothesized that someone is pretending to be someone else. Someone could have been pretending to be Neville.
I suppose that someone could use Polyjuice potion and affect some of Neville's behavioral quirks, like his tendency to use ridiculous-but-cool "special attacks". Polyjuice is a difficult potion and has a month-long lead time, but it's not inconceivable that Neville could have made or otherwise obtained some. Considering all the scheming that's been going on after the first battle, it wouldn't even be that much of an ass-pull. Or there might be simpler disguise methods; since this is all taking place underwater, it's hard to see and the voices are distorted.
So, we need to postulate:
I dunno, all of that seems like an asspull to me. And to what effect? Neville could've just swam off to 'play assassin' without all this. 'chaos' doesn't seem like a sufficient explanation.
Yeah, I don't think it's like Eliezer to seriously use the trope that would be required. If any surprises happen next time, they'll be foreshadowed a bit better.
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:
Just excuses? Or...? Dun dun dun...
Maybe I was just really unobservant reading the first time around, but rereading is really fun.
Ch 29
Pffhahahaha!
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.
It appears that a very large number of wizards are blood purists; Quirrel might just want power, and think that the best way to achieve that is by stirring up hatred for mudbloods.
I think he may have already done so, by way of Quirrelmort's reaction to Harry's statement that he wanted to use science.
Voldemort is scared of muggles. Quite reasonably so; despite Harry, there are enough of them that they'd very likely overtake the magic-users in a matter of decades on all useful fronts, and even now a conflict between muggles could squash the wizards like a bug.
Basically, I think he wants to
(a) Strengthen magical society to the point where they can stand up to the muggles. Harry might be helpful here, but there's a good chance their plans would conflict. Failing that..
(b) Get the hell off this rock.
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
So, we're returning to the days of math challenges? (i.e. the debate over the calculus?)
I think you're confusing separate issues. The idea of having contests where two mathematicians would each issue challenge problems to the other was primarily an event in the Middle Ages. This idea then continued in some forms with people like Fermat (later Middle Ages or early Renaissance depending on how you define things) who would issue challenges to others to prove what they had already proven. What Orthonormal is doing actually more closely resembles a practice from the 19th century where when multiple people were racing to solve a problem first, they'd every so often deposit a sealed envelope with some reputable independent body to verify issues of priority.
You're right, I was confused on the dates. I'm not referring to the sealed envelopes, but rather to the practice by which an alchemist/scientist/mathematician/etc would write a succinct summary of their discovery (i.e. "to transmute gold, add salt") and write the letters in alphabetical order. They'd publish this somewhere public. Then, if someone else discovered the same thing, they would say "aha, but here's my discovery" and point out how they came up with it ten years earlier by giving the "unhashed" version.
Hmm, you're right, it would have been much more fun to do it that way.
July 25 (after Chapter 32, prediction for Chapter 33):
SHA-1: f5721b3c6010973ee195dc160d0679477401a3df
Translation:
End of 32 only listed 3 options for Zabini. The fourth creates a 3-way tie. Zabini shoots himself as traitor.
Try echo -n.
Ah, you're right. I forgot
echoappends a newline by default.When the -n flag is added to the echo command (as suggested by ata) the hash matches.
So, unless orthonormal has exploited a security vulnerability on the Less Wrong server, orthonormal has expended a costly number of computing cycles to defeat the purpose of the hash function, I misunderstand the cryptographic guarantees provided by the hash function, or something equally unlikely, orthonormal really did write the following back on 25 July:
Erm, yeah. I thought we all understood the hash scheme.
Copying here to verify lack of editing in future.
If you edit the comment a little asterisk will appear by the time stamp. Just make sure you don't do that.
Pastebin maybe?
MD5 is utterly utterly broken and recommended against for any purpose. Use SHA-1.
EDIT: I should mention that SHA-1 is also theoretically broken and may see a demonstrated break soon, but nothing like as problematic as MD5. Until SHA-3 is agreed, the SHA-2 functions are a good stopgap where you need better security.
Thanks; I'll do so in the future.
Did you include your own name in the text? If not, someone else can present the same hash and there's no way to tell who came up with it.
Oh, good point. Fortunately, the actual importance of this whole endeavor is virtually nil, so it's a good opportunity for me to learn how I ought to have done it better.
If you edit the comment, an asterisk will appear after the time. Compare jimrandomh's reply to the others.
Ah, clever.
EDIT: Let me see this for myself.
EDIT 2: Hey, it's not working yet!
EDIT 3: Duh, I had to reload the page.
Can you say anything (without giving away the prediction) about when you would know if it is correct or not?
It's my guess at (some features of) the ending.
orthonormal predicts:
There, that's less editable for you.
You could use Prediction Book.
You can have a third party create a cryptographically signed timestamp for you. For example, secure-timestamp.org will do this. This can only be falsified by getting the timestamping server's private key or breaking its crypto algorithm. For things more important than Harry Potter predictions, you can have multiple third parties timestamp them for you, in which case falsification requires stealing all of their private keys.
See, I'm even refusing to edit my badly written intro.
transforming stuff would've made much more sense in many ways(more canon-compliant too) if matter transfigured would've retained imaginary bounds, thus magically nullifying the effect of pig breathing, magically produced electricity by turning depleted uranium into new fuel and all that sort of stuff.
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 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.
I'm still a little unsure about this. It's writing off the canon plot as a conspiracy theory, but Eliezer surely knows that sometimes conspiracies are correct (a few are stranger than fiction; besides the well known Gulf of Tonkin, there's also Operation Gladio or Propaganda Due) and that they really are out to get you. Cryonics, for example has been written off as a conspiracy theory by some.
And from a writer's perspective, it rearranges a lot of characters. Aside from Pettigrew now being dead as he's supposed to be, Sirius is now stuck in Azkaban, Bill is AWOL at Mungo's, and Remus has much less motivation to come in. My hope is that Eliezer actually has a different conspiracy cooked up which will use those characters, and it'll be a lesson in 'following the hard evidence no matter how silly/low-status/conspiratorial outsiders consider the theory' (with obvious relevance to cryonics).
:) And I have just given chapter 30 the rating of best chapter so far. And given that I loved the early ones that is high praise!
I particularly liked the part where Draco and Potter both concluded Quirrel was on the side of 'good'.
The hate that the Dark Lord Potter forum has on MoR is getting more than a bit amusing.
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.
That thread is an interesting read. Fun to see people taking this so seriously.
Personally I just like that it is educational material presented in a fun to read fashion that pokes fun at a rather silly story / fictional universe that has been forced upon us all by the engines of cultural osmosis. I have no problem with HP used as a cheap mnemonic device to memorize and illustrate a set of concepts that everyone should know but most people don't. I also don't have a problem with using it as a cheap advertising gimmick to get people to pay attention to matters that they should be paying attention to but don't. The annoyance of DLP folks at this is understandable, but somewhat hilarious from a perspective that thinks of there as being more important nerdy things to obsess over in life.
Yes, it seems to work great for that. I find myself saying things like, "As Lucius Malfoy would say, that sounds like the sort of plot that would work in a story but not in reality." or "That's like the time Harry Potter..."
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.
"You got played, Sam. And you forgot that all warfare is based on deception"
Yeah, not double-killing everyone seems just grossly incompetent (and therefore out of character) on Harry's part.
Harry has been learning an Evil Overlord List (warning: tv tropes), but apparently he had to figure out #13 the hard way.
Coincidentally enough, today's Overcoming Bias post is about the same thing.
Cremating people isn't enough to make sure they're dead if you have backup records and nanotech. I don't know if that approach has been used on a naive villain in fiction.
"Elementary"
I wonder if he is going to learn #92 as well!
As I argue in the reviews for chapter 31, Hermione herself was surely not playing possum, and likely neither were her 6 soldiers. That was not their idea. (Whether Nevile is smart enough to tell Harry, or whether one of the other armies will think of it in time for battle 2, is a question for the future.)
There were 24 people per army, and 11 of Sunshine came at Harry and 12 at Draco. And Harry & Draco had their realization of what happened when they remembered that Sunshine's soldiers went down immediately at the first shot. They were playing possum (all but Hermione, who didn't want to risk it).
The 6 soldiers left is after the battle of Sunshine's return, after they've already taken Potter hostage.
I increased the number of soldiers Hermione had left to help make this clearer.
Well, Hermione wasn't just appearing to be incompetent in the sense of "too stupid to calculate the correct solution;" she was appearing to be irrational in the sense of "too self-righteous to want to calculate the correct solution."
Also, note that Hermione actually did stay true to her goals: her possum tactic allowed her to avoid "unfairly" choosing who to attack first. By waiting until most other players had been sleepified, she was able to attack only the strongest or luckiest survivors, rather than the soldiers controlled by someone that she personally disliked. She was able to both win the game and stay true to her values because she (somehow) was much better at working in groups than Draco or Harry. One wonders how a girl who had no social skills in Chapter 3 suddenly became so socially adept -- has she been reading books on how to get along with people?
It's more that both Harry and Draco were mentally handicapped here. Draco has the glamorous dream of being the dark overlord who controls everything from the top, his orders unquestioned and his name spoken in hushed tones. Harry has the habit of trying to think up an ingenious plan by himself, and it just didn't occur to him to get other people in his army to do strategy planning. Tactics, sure, but not strategy.
Hermione, in contrast, is perfectly used to learning from others, and doesn't have particularly grandiose ambitions. And maybe Quirrell casually hinted that some of the people in her army were good at planning things. It seems the sort of thing he'd do, to make his plan less brittle.
I wonder what Arithmancy is in this universe (or in the original Potterverse, for that matter).
I believe it was a method of predicting the future using math (such as adding values of letters of people's names).
Wait -- then why doesn't Hermione ever explicitly predict the future in canon?
That's what it's supposed to be in reality, but as a subject at Hogwart's, that's far from clear.
ETA: Maybe my use of the phrase "this universe" was ambiguous? I meant the fic universe, not the universe I'm currently existing in.
In an interview, JKR confirmed that arithmancy at Hogwarts is as it is in real life. Only I would imagine that it actually works - otherwise there would be no basis to Hermione's claim that it's more robust and trustworthy than divination.
Awesome. Thanks!
Chapters 29 through 31: first we got Snape turning dark and dropping his mask, and now we have Quirrell winning over Hermione? Harry's in for a harder fight than he thinks.
Also, any news about that diary?
Eric Raymond (this guy) recommends Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
By the way, everyone, an anon on Wikipedia is disputing mention of MoR in the Eliezer Yudkowsky article, so if you see any further reviews/discussions/mentions/links of MoR by prominent people* besides ESR & Brin, please be sure to mention them here (and maybe message me about it). You may not like Wikipedia, but people go to it for information - EY's article gets a solid 1000 hits per month.
* where I define prominent as 'has a Wikipedia article'
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
The abstract mentions Deutsch November 1991, just a bit too late for Harry. Deutsch is specificaly about quantum mechanics and that the result is computable. He suggests that you could solve hard problems with a CTC, but I don't think he pursues it. I am amused by the caption to figure 5: "Network for finding a fixed point of f?"
If I'm reading this right, this isn't an experimental demonstration of time travel, rather, it's a theory of time travel, the predictions of which can be determined experimentally, and an example of such an experiment, to determine what would happen in a grandfather paradox case if the theory is correct.
I interpreted it as stating that they had actually performed the experiment, and gotten a positive result. Am I misinterpreting something?
As I understand it, their theory is that time travel is like postselection. Hence, to determine what would happen in the case of the grandfather paradox, they set up an equivalent postselection experiment. So if their theory is correct, the results of an actual grandfather paradox experiment would match the results of this simulated-via-postselection one.
In what sense is post-selection not time-travel? You've still got the state at time T determined by the state at T+1.
Because, if I'm reading this right, they literally manually postselected the results. They didn't come up with some way to get the physics to postselect it for you.
My interpretation matches yours.
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.
It will be weak move on Eliezer's part. As it will effectively make him the god of Harry's universe, which mean that Harry's universe cannot exist without him, that it is not self-sufficient and self-contained.
An interesting thought... I think Harry should actually be pleased with that discovery. Given everything he knows about fictional realities and his observations thus far about the HP universe he should be more confident in his ability to achieve godhood. DND is a system that has gone through versions, with a strong motivation for making it ungamable, but there are still loopholes.
I think you underestimate Harry's will to power. He was working on a cure for Alzheimer's, but are there really people with Alzheimer's in his home universe? As many as there are here?
As far as we know, exactly the same number. But I took the "Alhimer's cure" to just be a test for an obvious exploit in the form of something that would appeal to Hermione and with approximately the desired complexity.
Hang on, what which comment are you replying to here? I had assumed you were talking about questioning Harry's judgement (ie. overconfidence) regarding using Draco. But are you thinking that a concept based world has less potential for godlike power gain than a reductionist one?
I think Harry would want to have power where it could make the most difference.
His ideal outcome would probably include using his magical powers to get results which can be applied in both worlds, even if his effects are less godlike out here.
I think we must be talking about something different. I thought Harry was only in one world.
I'm heading off into wild hypothesis land.
If Harry figured out that he was living in fiction, what would he want to do?
Ahh, gotcha. And from what I can tell Harry would want to get results in both worlds. In fact, he would quickly begin to consider this world to be 'his'. It is similar to the kind of thinking he did when tranfiguring. From cognitive maps through molecules and atoms down to quantum configuration space. Just another step further. I would expect him to consider you and I with exactly the same priority as similar individuals that share his fictional emulation.
Now, as for what he can do to influence our world... that's an interesting thought. Create a superintelligence and solve the AI Box problem with the added difficulty of having to explain to the outside world how to build the AI structure. It is not inconceivable (but still unlikely) that the 'author' or emulator does not, in fact, know how to build a superintelligence himself. It is possible to be able to create a fictional world with someone like Harry in it while naturally being an inferior (but faster) thinker.
Say Harry found out that he was living in fiction and in the process of updating raises the probability that he can achieve godhood in his fictional universe but assigns a far lower chance to significantly influencing the base world. Would Harry be pleased or displeased by this discovery? My guess: He'd be all distraught and angsty about it. But I think that is due to him having immature emotional responses. He is, I suggest, strictly better off in the newly discovered situation than in his original scheme.
I’m not quite sure that passing through cognitive maps, then molecules, then quantum configuration space, then timeless quantum mechanics, and then concepts in the mind of his pseudo-world ’s author quite makes sense as progression.
“Seeing-through” the successive “layers of the world” helping transfiguration might make some sense in a fictional world. (Though I have a bit of trouble with why exactly only the extremes, i.e. conceptual and then timeless physics, do something interesting, rather than the intermediate steps also doing new things.) I doesn’t quite make sense when considering all those layers knowingly imaginary layers above the conceptual level of the author’s mind.
Whatever his writer wants him to?
I'm uncertain in which sense someone could be said to figure that out and still have a will of their own. It's a bit beyond merely living in a simulation.
If 'free will' is compatible with physical determinism (including the quantum variety) then why can it not be similarly compatible with living in a world based on some guy's thoughts? The same principles seem to apply.
I think the problem is a lack of detail. Harry isn't being simulated down to the neuronal level, or even down to the brain region. 'He' is a loose set of rules and free-floating ideas that please Eliezer or survived his theories, a very small entity indeed. And the rest of his world is even more impoverished - the rest of the world may just be a few words like 'the rest of the world'. Harry can't even execute bounded loops unless Eliezer feels like formulating them and actually executing them.
If Harry discovered he were in fiction, his motivation to help the rest of the world would instantly vanish. In fact, the most moral thing he could do is to hide in his trunk forever - if a rape only happens when you go to rescue the rapee and the narration follows you, if the murders only happen because you went looking for murders, then out of sight, out of mind, out of reality. In a 'real' simulation, this would not be the case, even if the author would never permit a character to test this.
(He might still want to escape into our world if the author desires him to desire this, but help his world? His world can no more be helped than J.K Rowling can help Zanzibar in canon HP. There is no there there.)
I think that kind of thing might have to wait until Harry is 15. I'll be surprised if there isn't a many year skip ahead in the next 25 chapters of the story.
Since around Chapter 20 this is actually my guess for the entire basis of magic that Eliezer is working from. That is... there's a jumble of ideas and tropes that are invented and sequentially stolen by one author after another. Someone tells stories of Vlad Tepis, Bram Stoker comes along... and N iterations later you've got Twilight with vampires having extra chromosomes and clairvoyance.
To understand a magical universe at the deepest level is to see the hands of previous authors influencing your physics and history (and possibly your future if you are in a prequel) plus a "current author" who has a measure of finer grained control over things like plotting and characterization - limited by the audience's willingness to play along.
If this theory of magic is right, rationality in a magical universe should lead you to to become genre-aware, and then the next obvious(?) thing is to go meta genre-aware and start trying to "genre hack" your universe and see if you can "tunnel" into the derivative works (or maybe just get the author to fall in love with you or something).
My current working theory is that Dumbledore as figured out a rough outline of these "magical physics" and has been actively manipulating his reality for decades, with the goal of setting up pre-conditions that could create "authorial change" and/or to make a certain story easy to tell given the facts. The more pointed goal is to cause his universe would branch at a "point of interest" in a direction that, according to fictional tropes, is more likely to be to his own liking.
Based on his revelation about pranking Harry's mother, I've got a (totally unnecessarily detailed) hypothesis about what he may have done to create initial conditions for Harry Potter something like 20 or 30 years before the present story (including setting up an abusive adoptive environment) that got Rowling to pick up the canon universe and give him a victory there.
In the meantime, if the theory is true, the deeper question is whether Voldemort has the same insight, and if he (in keeping with the "bad guys are better leaders" trope) he actually told some of his henchmen about his plan for the world. I think Snape might be genre aware? And the Malfoy's are even better candidates because they could be trying to hack the universe such that Draco is the main character in a fairly standard "magical prince from fallen but ancient family, rising to up to a historically and morally appropriate place in the world". Setting Harry up as Draco's evil arch-nemesis would be a good move in this vein... Harry falls into the Lex Luthor trope and eventually loses because "that's how those stories work".
The only trick is that they are actually in a fanfic about rationality!! I'm not sure if anyone realizes that yet. Maybe Dumbledore does now? Eliezer was more obvious about the story with this bit:
Which confirmed my hypothesis some. But my plotting hypothesis will not be supported if Dumbledore doesn't start seriously updating on the "science is starting to apply to magic" facts. I'm kind of curious why he didn't notice that Transfiguration was retconned in the first place. In the face of so much else magical chaos that Eliezer left in place that adjustment is sort of glaring. Noticing possible retcons is one of the nearly necessary skills you'd want to cultivate if you were going to genre hack.
I really hope my hypothesis bears out. I'm aware of no previous work of fiction that jootzed all the way to being genre-aware of its genre-awareness and I think it would be it would be hilarious to read one :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Number_of_the_Beast_%28novel%29
Heinlein's concept of "fictons" does exactly this.
It was strongly implied that Snape is familiar with Lord of the Rings to the point where he recognizes what the word "Nazgul" means. And it also is implied that Snape finds Harry comparing him to a Nazgul to be amusing. If Snape knew he was in a fictional work I doubt he'd find this as funny.
Wouldn't he just be amused that Harry's got it wrong?
Yes, well, you may have to write yourself the work you always wanted to read.
Cryptic, with a dash of sass :-)
Is that a denial plus an exhortation to write it myself? Or is it a smug admission that you're writing what you wanted to read which is something in the ballpark of my guess?
I'm also curious if you have plans to bootstrap out of our present situation? I've run some minor "metaphysical experiments" in the past to see if the world is as strictly "object level" as it seems to be, and I've recently tried a couple micro tests inspired by your HP story to see if "this world's story has started yet" with me as a character who can break the fourth wall and get feedback, and so far they've all come back with boring results.
You'd probably enjoy "Sophie's World" and "Godel, Escher, Bach" if you haven't already read them. (One of the dialogues in GEB features pushing-potion and popping-tonic; pushing-potion moves you down a level into a work of fiction or art, and popping-tonic takes you back up a level.)
I like your explanation, because it seems that the logical endpoint of your hypothesis would be my prediction that rationalist!Harry becomes Harry in the universe of the The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover .
If you have not read The Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover, you probably should, because it is genre-aware of its genre awareness, maybe a few more levels of meta-ness, or that kind of infinitely recursive meta-ness of this kind of selfawareness taken to the insane logical conclusions.
The spoilers for Permutation City are total -- Meta Mega Crossover contains an explanation of the ending of Permutation City. The Fire Upon the Deep spoilers aren't nearly as complete.
A link to a link to download Permutation City: http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=13&t=15223&s=.
Yes.. I'm still looking for a nonfiction explanation of the concepts in the Crossover. Given the size of the archive here, it wouldn't surprise me if Eliezer already wrote one, but I'd never be able to find it.
Chapter 28 aftermath 2 could be considered evidence in support of that hypothesis.
Wait, how? I didn't fully understand the implications of the end of chapter 28 and aftermath 2, but it seems that Harry's discussion with Snape has changed Snape in some strange way (hence his comment to Dumbledore), and the aftermath was evidence of this change, the new Snape now turning down students going after him.
Okay, if no one on LW got Aftermath 2, even after working out that the aftermath was supposed to display a change in Snape, then it was too subtle.
Given the number of theories so far, I'm surprised no one has suggested this one: Aftermath 2 is in fact meant to demonstrate that Snape's behavior has not changed, by displaying behavior that is entirely typical and expected of him; but now that Harry, Minerva, Dumbledore and the readers are all primed to look for changes, they will find them even where they shouldn't.
Hrm... So far best I can come up with are two possibilities, one more charitable and one less charitable toward Snape:
First: From his conversation with Harry, he perhaps concludes that making one's feelings (or lack theirof) to someone that may have feelings for you absolutely clear rather than leaving it ambiguous may be a good idea. (ie, in his own way, he wanted to protect his student from ending up in a situation similar to himself)
Second: He was sufficiently POed at Harry that he's no longer keeping his agreement to not legilimens the students.
I'm not really assigning all that high credence to either of those hypotheses, but they're more or less all I could come up with so far. So... give us a hint? :)
I don't know about subtle. I noticed it on my second read.
Why call it Aftermath 2? Why not just a nameless block? How is it the result of anything?
I guess I didn't fail to notice my confusion.
Dumbledore messed with the girl's mind to test if Snape was still in love with Lilly.
What I'm a bit uncertain about is the 'Ever since the start of this year' part. Has he been setting something like this up every year to have something ready when needed? More like, was that an intended implication?
Mind, the second part only occured to me after I read the reviews re Ch29 Notes.
Well... we don't have much of a baseline to compare this version of Snape to.
He may have had his mental discipline upset by the events of the previous chapter, causing him to be less in control of his Legilimency in some fashion. I did note the significance of the command to "restrain your eyes henceforth".
But yeah, even if I'm on the right track I don't feel confident of it. Too subtle for this reader.
Whatever it is, it must have something to do with this:
Hm, he did take sexual advantage of the student and then, being far above the 11-year-old-Draco-Malfoy lower bound on villain cunning, altered her memory?
My interpretation was that he gets a kick out of giving students love potions, reading their minds for kinky thoughts, and then refusing them in a humiliating way. It's a sort of safe sex. Obviously, this is not what you had in mind, as this has nothing to do with changing.
It seems like both you and Gabriel (below) have constructed hypotheses which make sense in isolation from certain relevant facts. In particular, there's a large fraction of the HP fanfic world consisting of females who write things with BDSM aspects and a dominant professor Snape. For example a dominant Snape with submissive Hermione pairing is not uncommon. Presumably whatever is going on here is in part making fun of that segment of fandom.
(I dated a girl at one point who's very much involved in the HP fanfic community and might not have picked up on this point otherwise. )
If not for Eliezer's remarks that there was something serious in this section I'd think that that was all that was going on this section- just a Take-That! to the fanbase. Given Eliezer's remarks I think he intended it to be both a Take That and also something else possibly along the lines of Alicorn's hypothesis.
Yes, I too thought it was just a cheap joke at the expense of Snape/student fanfiction...
My hypothesis is that thus far he's considered poor Alissa to be the most inconsequential thing ever to intrude on his thoughts; and having thought more deeply about what happened with him, Lily, and James when he was a kid, he now decides he ought to her to nip her affections in the bud for clearly stated reasons, rather than letting them fester without suitable closure for, perhaps, an unduly long time as his have. His only closure was that he insulted Lily and felt guilty about it forever (as apparently, from his perspective, this was the only thing standing between him and getting to be with Lily); Alissa's could be the end of school, without the issue ever being directly addressed.
The problem with this hypothesis is that it has Snape thinking that student crushes on teachers are persistent sorts of things, and this isn't typically the case.
That seems a little too compassionate for any version of Snape
My own take is that he's finally realised what an idiot he was for crushing so hard on Lily despite her lack of reciprocation. He's now being extra harsh on Alissa as a kind of substitute for going back in time and telling his younger self to get over it.
Well, he could well be generalizing from one example...
How do you interpret emphasis on "bad idea" here? It doesn't seem to fit in "more care from prof. Snape" hypothesis.
The part of her that wants to do that is the part that's fantasizing about special detentions; the instinct that says "bad idea" is the part that doesn't think this is one of those.
Ok. I should think about it.
I actually took it for Snape venting and doing a little dogkicking; so yes, I guess it was too subtle. (It seemed too abrupt and cruel to reflect any good change in Snape.)
In absolute terms, it was abrupt and cruel. But by Snape's standards, it was remarkably civilized. He didn't humiliate her in front of the whole class, and he ended it quickly.
That makes sense, I suppose (although I must have too high standards - it would never have occurred to me that this was a step up). I wish we had more background on how Snape treated student crushes.
Given that it was called 'Aftermath', I knew it signified some change, but in what direction I don't know. My best guess is that he's not romanticising crushes anymore. So in other words, this is actually a positive change for him.
Yes, but what part was the change? That he dislikes student affections? That he tells them about it? That they have affections? That he's previously been taking advantage of students in slashy ways?
If anything, I would've expected it to be him actually taking advantage, if he were taking Harry's advice to... oh. Wait. Maybe he is taking Harry's advice and has started looking for deep instead of pretty?
If so, it was definitely too subtle. ;-)
I'm getting a pretty sharp lesson in unintended ambiguity here. Although some of your suggestions are not compatible with a straight reading of the text.
Analysis of Harry's conversation with Snape in ch. 27.
Possible Snape thoughts: "He implies that I wasn't even a friend of She. How dare he!?" ... consideration of different ways of mutilation ... then "Oh! He can't possibly be like his mother. She had a very high standards for Her friends. Maybe his stepparents taught him this indiscrimination of friends."
"SHE was shallow!? ... But She married that brat Potter. Was Her standards high after all? Maybe not. And I gave all the power I could have for her..."
So I think Snape became misogynous. Thus Alissa's affection became irritating for him. I don't know what implications it will have for storyline however.
Edit: Analysis is done by Type 1 processing with Type 2 postselection, so no justification is given. :)
Edit: This hypothesis seems to be insufficient for explanation of emphasis on "wrong" in Aftermath 2, maybe there's something more.
Edit:
"Wrong" can mean, that she was aware, that Snape isn't kind of person young woman is supposed to crush on. I'm not sure that this is true for Slytherin. Anyway Snape isn't handsome guy, it's not deserve emphasis to hint that.
"Wrong" can mean, that she feels it's bad for her to show affection now. Fits my hypothesis, but not wording "There was probably something really wrong with her...", which imply that she knew it all the way.
Some part of puzzle seems to be missing.
The "wrong" is presumably that the wizarding world isn't much familiar with, or accepting of, urges tending towards BDSM. A student of her age would be unlikely to be familiar with the idea of such a thing not being "wrong", given their lack of internet access. ;-)
Um, yes, I find out what special detentions mean after I wrote last part.
My actual interpretation was that he'd let his shields down enough that someone could find him attractive.
This don't mix very well with your hypothesis.
Good point.
Or, disillusionment with the one girl he found attractive has finally pushed him out of the closet.
Harry told Snape that Lily only liked James because of his money and looks. So is it that Snape now thinks his students only like him because of his position and power, whereas before he thought they liked him for who he was? Has he become even more cynical? More inclined to reject people?
ETA: Some reviewers thought it was a reference to Snape performing Legilimency, but of course it doesn't take a mind reader to notice a dreamy-eyed girl.
This is what I figured. And there was the comment by Dumbledore (or Minerva?) that Snape wouldn't hurt Harry because Snape loves Harry's mother. So I'm now assuming that Harry managed to convince Snape that Harry's mother is not love-worthy, which means that Harry is now stripped of that protection.
He tells her to stop staring at him, and doesn't look at her when she comes to see him after class. Perhaps this was because he no longer needs to read her mind, because he's decided to stop reading students' minds, because he was doing so at the headmaster's bidding and he's broken with Dumbledore.
Wildly conjunctive and supported by a hair's breadth of evidence, but I don't have a better guess. Nothing else seems likely to have a dramatic effect on Harry's story.
Will we get a hint?
Or just that astute, moderately evil but just not a pervert.
Or likes hurting students' feelings more than he likes sex.
!!!
Wow. That's a whole order of evil beyond what I could conceive. Brilliant.
And this seems to be exactly what Dumbledore himself does. That is a lesson I hope we see Harry take on board for future experiments.
Sure. Escape into another simulation.
More seriously, obviously it's not guaranteed that an organism in a simulation can just create a copy in the outside world. How would a Game of Life organism, made out of glider guns and flashers and whatnot, made an atom-based form of itself?
What it could do is create something isomorphic. Whether this is possible is pretty much the same question as whether humans can make uploads. (Which is the inverse, actually - going from 'reality' to 'simulation'.)
Absolutely. It'll just take a superintelligence and some nano-tech.
"A wizard will do it", even-more-nerdy version.
Alternatively, you keep living in your simulation, but you get enough of a handle on the substrate that you can make changes in your simulation, protect it, or duplicate it.
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.
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.
Chapter 28: IMO, worst chapter yet. Harry is overpowered, and Hermione's reaction is overdone.
I don't think Harry is too powerful, but Hermione's reaction is definitely overdone. Eliezer's taken her weakness from the books and actually magnified it, when it's my understanding that the characters in this story are supposed to be better, more competent versions of their canon selves. Hermione has a lot of potential, so I hope he gives her some character development soon.
Interesting-- I think this chapter has the least unsatisfactory presentation of Hermione so far.
It's at least plausible that she'd be less self-assured than the canon version-- she's in a much weirder situation.
That was my experience too. She was much more likable as well!
I also liked some emphasis on Harry's cooperation with Hermione instead of more Harry-Draco stuff. Relying purely on trying to out-game a Malfoy for the purpose of developing godlike powers is a rather poor strategy.
Seriously? Did you miss the part about "I think that the second degree of caution will suffice."?
When Harry did the experiment under the supervision of an experienced, adult wizard, he had all sorts of safety precautions in place, that he did not have when he tried it on his own.
Hermione was right, Harry could have gotten them killed by trying novel tricks without any sort of precautions. And having seen the standard precautions, Harry understood this, which is why:
My problem wasn't that Hermione advocated more caution, but that she seemed to be doing so only because they were going "against the rules" (without really understanding why the rule existed). But I reread the scene with her confrontation of Harry just now and I think I didn't give her enough credit/ was confusing her with the canon version. Go Hermione ;)
Really? Because he can transfigure parts of objects? I took that as the rest of the wizarding world being incompetent.
This ability is at least as dangerous as the killing curse, if not more so. People are objects. Harry can now transfigure, say, a chunk of someone else's brain into steel, or glass, or water. Turning someone else into a ferret is scary, yes, but they'll turn back little the worse for wear.
This makes Harry very, very dangerous, especially because he hasn't realized it yet.
I always thought the killing curse was overrated. Many of the spells that first years use in pranks on each other will get you a kill if you are carrying a knife in your pocket.
In 1 vs 1 combat stupefy beats avada kedavra. By about 3 syllables.
Don't forget that Avada Kedavra has the advantage that it can't be blocked/mitigated/etc, whereas spells like stupefy presumably can (or that advantage of AK wouldn't be worth noting).
More specifically, most spells can be blocked by the "protego" charm. AK cannot be blocked in this matter although AK can be dodged or can have a large physical object block it.
It was already described in detail, when Transfiguration was introduced, that transfiguring a living thing kills it...
But does transfiguring a piece of a living thing kill it? I'm curious to see how that will work out.
Presumably that at least allows him to break through any locks. Mastering this wandlessly will make it impossible to effectively restrain him while leaving conscious. The choice to make it possible is still on the author, because the Magic could make it impossible regardless, as it holds lots of conceptual knowledge already and can impose map distinctions of its own, however the wizard conceptualizes the situation.
If you can prevent apparition by powerful wizards you can quite likely prevent transfiguration via a similar mechanism.
Unless the restraints are protected against transfiguration.
If the ability to transform just portions of objects is completely novel, those protections might or might not extend to it.
In other words: rejoice, Eliezer! Whichever you choose will be plausible! (As long as you remember to be consistent)
I'd dispute your claim about Hermione - I get that way about breaking rules sometimes, particularly when I am tired.
Shouldn't Slughorn be trying to get Harry into his social circle very soon after Harry's substantial victory over Snape?
Definitely, especially since Harry should be looking him up and courting him early on!
"I'm the boy who lived! Let's have a tea party. We'll invite Draco (not in disrepute yet) and Hermione."
I wonder if Harry will start making that sort of move soon. It seems to be the kind of lesson that HP:MoR may like to impart.
It's been a while since I've read the book. I don't know whether Slughorn would be amenable to such a direct approach, or would prefer to make the first move. If the latter, Harry would need to be more subtle.
Much of Slughorn's reticence was the result of the return of Voldemort and the resurrected Death Eater public face. But you are right nontheless. Perhaps it would be better to work his way in via other members of the slug club for example.
Sure, but how many days have passed? Not very many. And Slughorn is retired. Harry's exploits in books 1-5 are even more impressive than this Harry's maneuvering, and yet look how late on Slughorn is first introduced.
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.