Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96

NancyLebovitz

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 96. The previous thread is at almost 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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

someone tries to cast the Patronus Charm with entirely 'the wrong kind of thought to cast a Patronus Charm

Under what circumstances would such an event actually take place?

A few obstacles:

A caster would already have been trained in the Patronus Charm (otherwise they'd not know the wandwork etc.), and therefore would be aware that there's no point trying to cast the Patronus Charm with non-happy thoughts.
The basic use of the Patronus Charm is emergency Dementor protection, which you would not want to mess up by experimenting with alternative kinds of thought when casting.
There must be countless instances of people trying to cast the Patronus Charm in the face of a Dementor, and failing because Dementor exposure had already turned their thoughts too dark. Wouldn't people notice if such castings could generate new Dementors?

Fair points, though a failed Patronus Charm wouldn't always produce a Dementor if it only happened with a certain subset of wrong kinds of thought. I'm not sure why anyone might be making an attempt to cast a Patronus with a negative thought, but maybe if they use a happy thought that is at its core selfish or harmful to others? In which case, learning to cast the charm would tend to produce a new Dementor every so often as people experiment with finding a suitable memory or thought to use.

As for your last point, I suppose it would only make sense if the... (read more)