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pedanterrific comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 13, chapter 81 - Less Wrong
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So, Dementors Part Deux.
First, because someone had to say it:
(I guess Dementors aren't that smart.)
Secondly, I noticed that Harry's first Transfiguration lesson includes a photograph of a Dementor. What would that look like? What does Harry see, compared to everyone else? Why was he asking all the other students what they saw in the Patronus lesson without ever once thinking of that photograph?
Probably just a cloaked and hooded figure.
Next you'll be wondering why the robes in the picture don't decay.
That seems like it must be it, but it still doesn't make much sense. Page 5 has a woman with horribly discolored skin screaming in agony, page 6 has... a guy in a cloak! Oh no!
Ministry-issued textbooks might not have the best dramatic pacing.
The kids know what's in the cloak.
So add some sort of minor fear charm to that page of the textbook. Wizards aren't limited to paper and ink in their tools at conveying information to an audience.
It does seem to be a missed opportunity for continuity.
The Dementor's goal was to not die. You don't generally accomplish that by antagonizing the one guy who can kill you.
Unless they already plan to kill you, in which case antagonizing them can potentially reduce their threat.
Ah, but Harry doesn't intend to kill Dementors in particular, he aims to eradicate death itself (destroying them indirectly) and he is NOT confident that he will accomplish that in his lifetime. A Dementor that pisses off Harry dies immediately, while a Dementor that doesn't will only die if Harry lives long enough to succeed.
I doubt Dementors have a proper understanding of just how much Harry hates them. Also, I suspect that delaying the inevitable is a pretty universal reaction of intelligent creatures - you never know, the horse might learn to sing.
Or at least it could be a universal reaction of intelligent mammals.
Are you familiar with the story I was referencing?
Delaying the inevitable is actually a perfectly rational thing to do.
I've heard it, it's cute and has a sometimes applicable moral. But my response is to the universal generalization across all intelligent creatures in all circumstances. Are you familiar with the "Mind Projection Fallacy" I linked to?
I haven't heard the phrase, but it's a pretty obvious concept to anyone who's read sci-fi. My point is that delaying the inevitable is an actual strategy, and one that has good reason to exist, whatever the type of intelligence. Unless you're literally prescient, playing for higher variance in a bad situation makes good sense.
The goalposts seem to have moved irrecoverably.
The Dementor can try to undercut Harry now, and die for it, or it can play for time, hope he stumbles on another obstacle, and perhaps survive. The latter seems saner to me, assuming that Dementors are not overflowing with empathy for their bretheren(or that they're simply lacking in plotting ability). Which part of this is goalpost-moving?
I would guess it's pretty universal in non-superintelligent but still intelligent creatures, because it does work to a point. A non-superintelligent creature is unable to reliably foresee the future, and what seems "inevitable" right now often is not (because of external events, or because of a solution found later on). So, delaying something that seems inevitable will sometimes end up in finding a way to counter it.