Val comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 117 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Gondolinian 08 March 2015 07:00PM

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Comment author: Val 09 March 2015 10:35:47PM *  0 points [-]

What was your prior that Voldemort, afraid of Harry, would rather screech at 37 Death Eater to make sure Harry doesn't raise his wand, rather than just order Harry to drop the wand?

Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway. If he orders Harry to drop his wand, Harry might refuse, and then he has to kill him before being able to extract information out of him.

We have to weight the probability of Harry being able to raise his wand before the Death Eaters can cast (deemed impossible, as we've seen how fast a grownup wizard can cast) and cast a spell which defeats Voldemort against the probability of Harry refusing to drop the wand and being required to be killed before telling any secrets. I strongly suspect the later one is many orders of magnitudes larger.

Voldemort knows Harry has knowledge he has not, but this doesn't necessarily mean Harry knows spells or has the magical power required to cast strong enough spells to harm him.

Comment author: ArisKatsaris 09 March 2015 11:53:24PM 4 points [-]

Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway

So now you're saying that Voldemort can order Harry to keep his wand lowered and threaten him with death if he raises it, but he can't order Harry to drop the wand and threaten him with death if he refuses?

I somehow doubt that you would have come to this rather very specific conclusion if you hadn't needed to explain-after-the-fact the things we saw occur in the story.

Comment author: Val 10 March 2015 03:51:35PM 0 points [-]

I can't prove it because I didn't write it down, but this very question bothered me after reading chapter 113, and I made up this explanation before reading chapter 114.

Comment author: Velorien 09 March 2015 10:47:50PM 0 points [-]

Voldemort knows that Harry understands game theory, and has no incentive to drop his wand if he ends up dead and cannot save everyone anyway. If he orders Harry to drop his wand, Harry might refuse, and then he has to kill him before being able to extract information out of him.

There are two possible answers to this argument.

  • 1) If Harry is refusing to give up his wand, this suggests that Harry thinks that with the wand he has a non-0% chance of escape. In that event, getting the wand off him takes priority over questioning.
  • 2) Expelliarmus. One of Voldemort's 36 followers must know it, and if not, frankly Voldemort could probably teach them on the spot.

Voldemort knows Harry has knowledge he has not, but this doesn't necessarily mean Harry knows spells or has the magical power required to cast strong enough spells to harm him.

"Power he knows not" strongly implies the ability to do or achieve something, rather than abstract knowledge with no immediate applications.

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