Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 23, chapter 94

elharo

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 94. The previous thread has passed 200 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, 20, 21, 22.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Why didn't Harry acquire a working Time Turner / make someone else use a Time Turner as soon as he found out Hermione was missing? Why did Dumbledore make sure it was actually Hermione who died, making the use of Time Turners to alter events that much harder?

If this story wasn't constrained by any story telling concerns, Time Turners would just dominate everything. "How do I use my Time Turner to cheat?" would be the first and last thought of a rationally empowered Harry whenever he has an inkling of something bad happening, and not something he could ever miss.

The story says "This [Time Turner] could've saved Hermione, if I'd been able to use it.", but really, how hard would it be to acquire one of the other Time Turners he relied upon for sending the messages? Even if those students weren't present in the Great Hall at the time, as soon as his own Time Turner was locked down in the first place, acquiring access to another one would have been the highest priority by far, and surely within his means (given that other Time Turners are only controlled by fellow students).

The more I think about it, the more an even more rational version of a HP-fanfic should be called "Harry Potter and the Time Turners". Probably less entertaining, but that's the downside when you take your characters' intellect seriously ...

Edit: I also missed this: "if I'd looked for a student with a Time-Turner to send a message back in time before I found out about anything happening to her, instead of ending up with an outcome that can't be altered". That's one remark that is just wholly incompatible with any half-competent Harry. It's just inconceivable, on the order of someone giving you a genie and endless wishes, and you just not thinking of it in a situation of great need.

How hard would it be to acquire one of the other Time Turners he relied upon for sending the messages?

How hard? Very.

"Many resstrictionss. Locked to your usse only, cannot be sstolen. Cannot transsport other humanss."

8Richard_Kennaway13y

Eliezer has said somewhere that if Harry were written as a perfect rationalist, he would be too ridiculously super-powerful for an interesting story in that universe to be possible. Harry is simply at the level he is, and it is not really a fault in him or the story that he is not further advanced along the path than he is.

9thomblake13y

For it is a sad rule that whenever you are most in need of your art as a rationalist, that is when you are most likely to forget it.