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Armok_GoB comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 7 - Less Wrong Discussion
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One theory I've had for a while:
Maybe the death needed to make a horocrux is not needed to preserve the mind. it is needed for the minds ability to cast independent magic. One could make a perfectly fine horocrux without killing anyone that had the only problem that you'd be a muggle when you were brought back.
This is the most important consequence of a more general theory: What a wizard means with the word "soul" is their independent magic power source, and that follows some conservation law. Evbidence for this includes wizards not considering mugles to be persons, and paintings appearing to have most of the information needed to completely reconstruct them in an easily readable form even if it can't be exceuted peroperly.
This would make Draco's statement that muggles don't have souls accurate. Combined with McGonagall's statement that AK strikes directly at the soul, it would seem to imply that (1) AK should have no effect on muggles, and (2) AK should be nonlethal, only rendering the wizard nonmagical.
Canonically, AK causes destructive side effects (inanimate objects' blowing up when hit, etc). It could be that it strikes at the soul, severing a Wizard from their magical power, and additionally causes a blast that would kill an ordinary Muggle (but not a Wizard that remained a Wizard). So it kills Wizards by a two-step process, and Muggles by one. However, modern Muggle technology might be able to defend against it, unbeknownst to the Wizards.
I think that this makes AK a little more complicated than it should be. But the canonical AK (and especially the AK as seen in the movies) already is more complicated than it should be.
I don't think it would be a "blast" in the sense of blowing up a desk, since people hit by it are left (according to canon) "in seemingly perfect health, except for being dead."
That's true; the problem is that this is not how it's shown in the movies, nor is it consistent with the side effects in the books. Further research is needed.
McGonagall might simply be WRONG about it striking directly at the soul.
Of course. And likewise, wizards in general could be completely rather than partially wrong about the nature of souls.
um, I think you misunderstood my theory: what wizards mean with the sequence of symbols "soul" is not "that which makes you, you" but "magical power source that can't be copied". It's not about if they're right or wrong, it's about what concept the symbol references. Their beliefs ABOUT souls, such that people without souls are of less moral worth, can and is still often wrong.
That's what I thought you meant. Perhaps you misunderstood mine: that the concepts wizards associate with the sequence of symbols "soul" does not even slightly resemble anything in reality.
Well, it's possible but it doesn't seem very likely. The only requirement of reality for that concept to make sense is that magic requires somehting that is in some way scarce, for example such that wizards have it but muggles or spell effects don't. If this comes in discrete chunks or not, if if's made of information or some more tangible magic substance, if it can be duplicated with sufficient effort, etc. do not place strict requirements.
If McGonogall is right, then agreed on (1). But not (2): if wizards have integrated a magic source into themselves sufficiently to use it, presumably destroying it could have knock-on effects. If I strap a jetpack to myself, something which strikes directly at the jetpack could still lead to me being left in small, burning fragments when it exploded.
That's a good point. And even if the magic doesn't explode, the body might have grown dependent on the magic; we know that wizards don't break easily, and it seems reasonable that there might be other health benefits as well.
Indeed, especially the really old ones who presumably haven't bothered to use anything else to sustain their bodies. Rather like vampires descending into dust as the supernatural forces holding them together disappear and the entropy catches up with them.
Which is why newly-created 25 year old vampires becoming grave dust in Buffy always distressed me.