= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
moritz comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 10 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (641)
So, what kind of "miracle" will Harry produce for the next battle (assuming for a moment that Hermione is going to be released, and there will be a next battle)?
I thought that maybe he finds a way to learn wordless magic, thus having a huge advantage since the others don't know what spells will be coming. But then I realized that it's not even necessary -- in the heat of the battle it's enough not to shout the incantation, whispering it will mean that the opponent can't hear it.
It's a simple enough thing that I wonder why none of Harry, Hermione, and Draco seem to consider it.
At least I haven't found any indication that shouting the words of a spell make it more powerful.
It seems to me that potion making is still a clear advantage that Harry has over his rivals - they aren't going to discover the principal at the heart of potion making. At the moment, trying to invest additional effort in making more useful sorts of potions and or hiding the preparations better seems to be the easiest marginal increase in chaos' power.
Strategy, like markets, is anti-inductive. As Edward Luttwak says somewhere, "all success tends to failure". When you win a battle or a war, your enemies and onlookers concerned that you may turn on them will learn from what you did, and look for counters, while you will be tempted to rely on what worked. But if you do that, you are attributing your success to the wrong place: on what you did instead of on the relationship between what you did and what your enemies did.
Harry hasn't repeated himself yet: to all new challenges he has found new responses.
Sure, but I think it would be better to think of potion making at a very high level in strategy. Harry used transfiguration in battle after battle and managed to win. Do you think of that as not innovating? I think there is a similar relationship between ball bearings and skateboards and suits of armor in the transfiguration category and potion of sunlight and whatever comes next in the potion making category.
If I understood correctly, Harry didn't invent a new potion, he found it one of the books that Flitwick recommended. And if you assume that Draco still has Snape's support, it won't be easy for Harry to find more powerful potions than Draco.
It also seems clear that the teachers involved think that inventing new potions is far too dangerous with Harry's current level of experience (which is basically none). That's why I don't think that more potions will be the way to Chaos' success. At least not the critical factor.
That's quite a good idea, but not enough for Harry to win when outnumbered. I'm not so sure he really needs a new idea at the moment, it might be simply continue inventing potions with non-magical ingredients (Could you make the other team lose the will to fight with a potion made from tears?).
Of course, he'll probably have an epiphany on a completely different subject none the less.