Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90

palladias

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 90. The previous thread has passed 750 comments.

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.)

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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,18,19.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

Back in the story's early days I predicted that prime factoring wouldn't work, because then the story wouldn't be about rationality any more... it would be about time travel. If my theory and your theory are syncretized then "the force" here is simply "Eliezer's plot generation efforts which will output a story consistent with his broader authorial intent".

In this model, the way the characters might be able to choice-fully manipulate "the force that chooses time loops" to give them what they want is by being genre savvy enough to have their planning process be the one that functions as a positive example of science informed x-rationality leading to good outcomes, and the stable time loops that come into existence won't be super dramatic, but they will helpfully nudge them closer to x-rationality-demonstrating victories. Harry's unlocked time turner (as of Chapter 90) becomes more interesting in this light.

However, it seems like there's an element of irony in this framing, because there is almost no scientific evidence that I'm aware of in the heuristics and biases literature (nor inspirational essays in Eliezer's sequences) that the skill of genre-savvy-ness is useful in real life. On the downside I've heard that keeping a diary may have a causal role in depression. On the upside I've also heard that reading more novels than normal tends to give people better "other human modeling" skills that can translate into higher salaries. But neither of these sorts of prosaic angles seem central to LW culture?

If my theory and your theory are syncretized then "the force" here is simply "Eliezer's plot generation efforts which will output a story consistent with his broader authorial intent".

In a sense, this goes without saying. All stories run on narrative causality. However, part of what makes a story interesting is that it follows consistent laws. There's no drama in a cliffhanger if gravity isn't here to stay. Similarly, the time loops are much more interesting if they're controlled by the characters' intents and abilities, rather than ... (read more)