wedrifid comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 4 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: gjm 07 October 2010 09:12PM

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Comment author: wedrifid 02 November 2010 03:49:12PM 3 points [-]

Could, for instance, Harry split his soul into its separate agents without the act of murder? Or is the important part of the Horcrux magic stealing someone's soul to use as media to make a copy your own soul? How close are Harry's suppositions in Ch20 to the MOR-reality?

Evidence for a 'soul' and the need to eliminate another in order to do horcrux like magic gives some credence to theories that MoR is in a simulated world. You need to wipe out an existing virtual machine in order to put an extra instance of yours there, splitting your own may require dividing your 'soul/computational resources' between multiple instances, etc.

Comment author: DaveX 02 November 2010 05:42:10PM 0 points [-]

How do we know that one needs to eliminate another soul in order to do horcrux-like magic?

If copies require wiping out of existing virtual machines, population growth should be impossible. Since, at least in the muggle world, population growth happens, would this be evidence against a theory of a simulated world?

Also, if the Bacon Diary is a "very recent" Horcrux, wouldn't that imply the cost to the original is not a strict division?

Comment author: thomblake 03 November 2010 02:32:18PM 3 points [-]

How do we know that one needs to eliminate another soul in order to do horcrux-like magic?

I think that was a reference to canon - creating a horcrux requires murder (Confirmed in MoR by Dumbledore in chapter 28)