Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9

Oscar_Cunningham

14 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9

by Oscar_Cunningham

9th Sep 2011

1 min read

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(The HPMOR discussion thread after this one is here.)

The previous thread is over the 500-comment threshold, so let's start a new Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread. This is the place to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic and anything related to it. The latest chapter as of 09/09/2011 is Ch. 77.

The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. The fanfiction.net author page is the central location for information about updates and links to HPMOR-related goodies, and AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author's Notes.

As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it's fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that "Eliezer said X is true" unless you use rot13.

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 — LessWrong

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pedanterrific15y120

(This sort of goes along with all the other responses to the grandparent, but Donny's is the best fit):

I'm having a hard time believing that the girl who said this-

Instead (the books had said) there was a sort of pressure that built up in Time, when some huge event was trying to happen, or stop itself from happening. And seers were like weak points that let out the pressure, when the right listener was nearby. So prophecies were only about big, important things, because only that generated enough pressure; and you almost never got more than one seer saying the same thing, because afterward the pressure was gone.

Is the same girl who said this-

Hermione turned back to face Dumbledore again, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, maybe people who are going to be heroes, will be heroes no matter what. But I don't see how anyone could really know that, aside from just saying it afterward. And when I told you that I wanted to be a hero, you weren't very encouraging."

Okay, say that prophecies are caused by 'pressure in Time' from great events that are 'trying' to happen. How could anyone know that? What's worse, though, is that she did this research with Harry, who apparently let her walk away believing this nonsense.

Edit: (And if Eliezer pops in to say the Department of Mysteries has a room full of Temporal Barometers I will be very unhappy.)

hairyfigment15y20

It might have a credible meaning, depending on how we explain the facts of time travel. Perhaps some agent inspires prophecies to help ensure a coherent timeline.

This suggests that HJPEV or Voldemort will, as a result of the prophecies, affect the distant past somehow and become their own metaphorical grandfather (e.g by 'erasing Atlantis'). But it doesn't have to mean that. Perhaps without post-prophecy Harry, Voldemort would simply have gotten bored with world domination and decided to kill his own grandfather again.

5Desrtopa15y

Even if the explanation given for the observations is wrong, it wouldn't change the observations, that prophesies only ever seem to be about big important things, don't occur on demand, and don't get delivered by multiple seers or by the same seer more than once. Whether Hermione believes the explanation or not (she'd certainly be wise to be skeptical of it) doesn't affect whether she has enough information to dispense with the hypothesis that Millicent is a seer. The fact that she related the contents of some books to Daphne and Millicent doesn't necessarily mean she bought their contents wholecloth, it could have just been the simplest way to make a point. She might have believed it; remember that Hermione much more than Harry is used to taking things she reads at face value, and compartmentalization is normal, but I wouldn't take it as established.

0JoshuaZ15y

There may be theoretical considerations that suggest that prophecy works this way. There may be some framework where this is the simplest interpretation, sort of how many-worlds is arguably the simplest interpretation of quantum mechanics even though we can't observe other branches of the wave.

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