gwern comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 28, chapter 99-101 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: palladias 12 December 2013 05:10AM

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Comment author: TobyBartels 16 December 2013 02:20:09AM 0 points [-]

There was a chapter in which Harry does research to determine which animals are known to be intelligent.

Can anybody find this for me? I'm not having luck.

Comment author: gwern 16 December 2013 04:32:09AM 3 points [-]

animal intelligence research site:hpmor.com; first hit: http://hpmor.com/chapter/49

Harry still hadn't decided what he was allowed to eat for lunch.

His library research hadn't turned up any sign of wizards speaking to nonmagical plants. Or any other nonmagical animals besides snakes, although Spell and Speak by Paul Breedlove had recounted the probably-mythical tale of a sorceress called the Lady of Flying Squirrels.

which is not explained in the chapter, so one looks back to http://hpmor.com/chapter/48 and http://hpmor.com/chapter/47 for the full context of Harry freaking out about talking to snakes and being carnivorous.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 16 December 2013 08:26:57AM 1 point [-]

Something else not explained there is the namecheck to Paul Breedlove's "Speak and Spell". I suspect the Lady of Flying Squirrels also means something but I don't know what, although the French version of Speak and Spell was called La Dictée Magique, and one of its modules was Les Animaux Familiers.

Comment author: gwern 16 December 2013 02:50:16PM 1 point [-]

I suspect the Lady of Flying Squirrels also means something but I don't know what

Just Eliezer throwing in more allusions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Girl / http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/SquirrelGirl (this was identified in the discussions for those chapters, and Squirrel Girl actually appeared before in the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover IIRC).

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 December 2013 02:38:55PM 0 points [-]

Thanks, I stopped looking too soon!

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