Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 24, chapter 95

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 95. The previous thread has passed 300 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, 23, 24.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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, 23, 24.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

I don't disagree, but I would note that the extent to which people exhibit role-like behavior is probably also somewhat due to cognitive limitations as well as humans not being strategic. You cannot consider every possible scenario or plan, so if you want to be a good friend, a good cook, or a good philosopher, looking at the way that other friends, cooks, or philosophers behave and copying that is generally a pretty good heuristic. It's often better to follow the accumulated wisdom and only make small improvements on that, rather than to try something drastically different that nobody has tried before but which should work in theory, or which at least should if the bullet-swallowers are correct.

Note that this is compatible with Quirrell maintaining that McGonagall wouldn't be enthused with the idea of resurrecting Hermione even if it was pointed out to her: indiscriminately believing in arguments is dangerous, so it would still make sense for her to reject an outlandish argument that she couldn't properly evaluate, like "let's go resurrect Hermione", even if she did genuinely care about Hermione.