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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Although not instant win, beating the interdict is potentially a route to great power fast. I think its a more likely route because its more fuzzy.

The 6 hour limit on turners is a hard rule, there is not a lot of room for subjective interpretation to play with. The partial transfiguration trick works because form and object and the like are fuzzy concepts that don't map exactly onto anything in the real world. The limit on the transmitting of "sufficiently powerful spells" seems very similar in that its based on an idea without an exact referent. Sufficiently powerful compared to what, compared to a candle? Compared to a gun? Compared to a nuke? Compared to a meteor? Compared to a supernova?

If Harry calibrates powerful based on a supernova and really "gets" how powerful that is, do all spells seem piddling by comparison and pass through the edict unscathed? There's certainly room to work with here.

Frankly, the only reason that partial transfig does not make Harry insanely overpowered is because of Harry's weak mana (which will get better as he ages) and the need to avoid transfiguration sickness.