No, for a qualitative change in various probabilities we can ask if Dumbledore has unpleasant associations with burning -- like a memory of something he wishes he didn't (have to) do, or of a sad time for his family. These would reduce the chance that he sees "setting fire to a chicken" as clever.
Seems like a sadistic DD who killed Narcissa would enjoy alluding to this event, in a way that would disturb Harry without making him suspect the purpose behind it. But that seems to me like a more complicated hypothesis than a Dumbledore who shares Donny's suspicions, given that DD looks like a 'bad guy' of a radically different kind.
Ok, I'm a bit lost here, I haven't dealt with probabilties for several years and would like to find out where I was wrong. Please correct my reasoning:
P(Dumbledore did it \bigcap Dumbledore is a Sadist) =P (Dumbledore did it) x P(Dumbledore is a Sadist)
P(Dumbledore did it)=1-P(Dumbledore didn't do it)
P(Dumbledore didn't do it)=P(Dumbledore didn't do it | He burned a real chicken) + P(Dumbledore didn't do it | He burned something transfigured to be a chicken).
Now, we don't know the probabilities P(He burned a real chicken) and P(He burned something transfig...
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 81, which should be published later today. The previous thread passed 400 comments as of the time of this writing, so it will pass 500 comments soon after the next chapter is posted, if not before. I suggest refraining from commenting here until chapter 81 is posted; comment in the 12th thread until you read chapter 81. After chapter 81 is posted, I suggest all discussion of previous guesses be kept here, with links to comments in the previous thread.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.) When posted, chapter 81 should appear here.
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,nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
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: