Unnamed comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 20, chapter 90 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: palladias 02 July 2013 02:13AM

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Comment author: Unnamed 02 July 2013 08:14:19AM 27 points [-]

Star lifting is not only a thing, it's a thing that has been mentioned in HPMOR... by Harry... in response to Trelawney's prophecy.

Chapter 21, after Trelawney says "HE IS COMING. THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY -" and is whisked away:

"Not to mention, tear apart the very what? "

"I thought I heard Trelawney start to say something with an 'S' just before the Headmaster grabbed her."

"Like... soul? Sun?"

"If someone's going to tear apart the Sun we're really in trouble!"

That seemed rather unlikely to Harry, unless the world contained scary things which had heard of David Criswell's ideas about star lifting.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 02 July 2013 10:17:53AM *  12 points [-]

Pointing out the obvious, but

scary things which had heard of David Criswell's ideas about star lifting.

Is long for "Harry James Potter Evans Verres". Of course, he gave plausible explanation for why it couldn't refer to him at the time, and all he had to go on was the letter s, so of course that hypothesis wouldn't have elevated itself to his attention at the time.

Comment author: elharo 02 July 2013 10:48:13AM *  3 points [-]

Question: what does it mean to say "X is a thing"?

Does it mean:

A) The concept exists? (e.g. Unicorns are a thing)

B) The concept may not exist yet, but it could exist? (E.g. lunar colonization is a thing; but unicorns are not a thing.)

C) the concept actually exists (Space stations are a thing.)

Comment author: Velorien 02 July 2013 12:19:01PM *  5 points [-]

I believe in general Internet parlance its usage is closest to A, and more rarely C. Obviously, since A could be made about pretty much anything, it is typically restricted to "the concept exists, and is acknowledged by a sufficient number of people" (e.g. "Rule 34 is a thing").

Comment author: D_Malik 02 July 2013 01:54:08PM *  14 points [-]

And since the phrase "is a thing" is acknowledged by many people, we could say that "is a thing" is a thing. Unfortunately, ""is a thing" is a thing" is not yet a thing.

Comment author: tondwalkar 04 July 2013 03:28:36AM 1 point [-]

""is a thing" is a thing" is a thing in sense C.

Comment author: ShardPhoenix 02 July 2013 11:56:11AM *  4 points [-]

Saying "x is a thing" is a way of reminding people of a relevant concept that may have been overlooked. Whether it's an actual physically existing thing or not depends on context.

Comment author: Decius 02 July 2013 09:38:57PM 1 point [-]

Context dependent, and possibly the distinction between the three is not really a thing.

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