75th comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Oscar_Cunningham 07 March 2012 04:46PM

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Comment author: 75th 13 March 2012 06:05:01PM 1 point [-]

Forgive me if I'm being dense, but I don't understand what remains of his point, given that he was wrong about how the Groundhog Day Attack worked.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 13 March 2012 07:26:29PM 3 points [-]

Cloak & Hat kept saying "Hello, again", when for all Hermione knew he'd not talked to her before. That's indeed a somewhat bizarre slip for Quirrel to make. And regardless of whether he was going to tell "Time travel" or not, regardless of whether it was a lie or not, it seems a bit out-of-character for Quirrel to be catching himself mid-sentence.

Comment author: ahartell 13 March 2012 08:02:19PM 4 points [-]

Hmm, I just thought he was being, I guess, playful or something, rather than it being a slip.

Comment author: Larks 13 March 2012 10:32:05PM 1 point [-]

Or he might just have been planning on Obliviating her again.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 13 March 2012 11:01:15PM 9 points [-]

Doesn't seem like Quirrel to slip even if he can't see a way for it to hurt him. He's too careful for that.

Comment author: linkhyrule5 13 March 2012 06:36:41PM 1 point [-]

Quirrel wouldn't have made any near slips. Apparently I don't know what he was about to say, but Quirrel wouldn't even have gotten that far.

Comment author: 75th 13 March 2012 08:36:59PM 6 points [-]

Quirrell has slipped up before, when he tried to kill Bahry. Every rationalization Quirrell later gave for why it would have been stupid was absolutely correct, but I believe he did sincerely try to kill him. In the heat of the moment, in the depths of his hate, he decided to do what he felt like rather than what was smart.

Of course, this encounter with Hermione is not like his encounter with Bahry. But he is pretty agitated; he sounds agitated, anyway, and it fits, given that it took him a few hours to find the right lever to pull with Hermione. At any rate, he has no reason to be particularly careful with what he says to someone he's planning to Obliviate anyway. And given all that, I think Eliezer was not acting out of character to pick that moment as a time to throw us some scraps.