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pedanterrific comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong Discussion
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(This sort of goes along with all the other responses to the grandparent, but Donny's is the best fit):
I'm having a hard time believing that the girl who said this-
Is the same girl who said this-
Okay, say that prophecies are caused by 'pressure in Time' from great events that are 'trying' to happen. How could anyone know that? What's worse, though, is that she did this research with Harry, who apparently let her walk away believing this nonsense.
Edit: (And if Eliezer pops in to say the Department of Mysteries has a room full of Temporal Barometers I will be very unhappy.)
Even if the explanation given for the observations is wrong, it wouldn't change the observations, that prophesies only ever seem to be about big important things, don't occur on demand, and don't get delivered by multiple seers or by the same seer more than once. Whether Hermione believes the explanation or not (she'd certainly be wise to be skeptical of it) doesn't affect whether she has enough information to dispense with the hypothesis that Millicent is a seer.
The fact that she related the contents of some books to Daphne and Millicent doesn't necessarily mean she bought their contents wholecloth, it could have just been the simplest way to make a point. She might have believed it; remember that Hermione much more than Harry is used to taking things she reads at face value, and compartmentalization is normal, but I wouldn't take it as established.
I am able to distinguish between observations and inferences, and I certainly never argued that Millicent (or, rather, her sister/Miss Felthorne) was actually a seer. The problem was that Hermione seemed not to distinguish between them, even in a mental aside. Heck, even Draco only took one conversation with Harry before he figured out the difference between demonstrable facts and non-demonstrable explanations for those facts.
Of course, the more I think about it the less unlikely it seems. The whole 'pressure in Time' business rather offended my sensibilities at first, but... well, they certainly don't treat fragile Time-Turners as though they were irreplaceable artifacts of lost Atlantis, which rather implies they can make more, which rather implies (though certainly does not prove, given the example of Transfiguration) that they have some idea what they're talking about when it comes to the theory.
I think it also sort of implies that Eliezer has a coherent metaphysics going on behind the scenes. The decision theoretic generalization of anthropic selection, reifcation of good story selection effects like conservation of detail or whatchamacallit from tvtropes, things like that. I heard that he once wrote a story about time machines? Or at least one about "outcome pumps". I wouldn't be surprised if he reuses his cleverest ideas from there in HP:MoR.
One question about theology, miracles, and Newcomblike problems that intrigues me:
If I was in a Harry Potter fanfic I would probably find out within 3 hours and then spend the next two weeks reading about common plot twists of Harry Potter fanfiction, knowing that my breaking the fourth wall so explicitly was either happening behind the scenes or I was in the fanfic of a very meta-cognizant author.
But what if that's a bad idea? The author has a model of me in his head, and if he knows that I'm the type of person who does that then he might change the story to make my metaness futile (because the only reason you'd write a story like that is to include irony of some kind), or less saliently he might just decide not to write the story in the first place. So should I not allow myself to think certain thoughts about what characteristics the author of the farce is likely to have, because doing that is like asking to be made the subject of an ironic twist?
Unfortunately IRL I'm in a Will_Newsome story where the hidden rules are significantly harder to think about.
You won't think of it. You just won't discover you're in a fanfic! The laws of physics are running on an author, and that author doesn't want you to discover you're in a fanfic. I expect you will have trouble thinking thoughts physics itself does not want you to think.
That depends on the author. If an author is good enough, and have an accurate enough model to realize he would in the first place, and still chose to base the character of a real person, then hopefully they author cares enough about accuracy to not do hamfisted overrides like that.
In fanfic for almost any universe (whether Harry Potter, Star Trek or whatever) fanfiction devoted to that universe doesn't exist for obvious reasons. So this seems unlikely. Moreover, even if one had almost any fanfic that did have the fictional version of the universe inside that universe also (almost all of which is deliberately silly things like Barry Trotter) there's not much way for you to rule out being a character in the fanfiction- you are random Muggle number 10543549 and you will never encounter any wizards in your life, or if you do, will not realize it. In the unlikely event that you do realize it you will probably be quickly obliviated.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant "if I was in roughly Harry's situation in HP:MoR" (and "I would read about common plot twists that seemed pertinent to the sort of story that I found myself in", not "I would already know which story I was in, recursively" though that would be pretty cool). I almost agree with your analysis except for decision theoretic reasons I never expect to find myself as a muggle in any story. ("My" "self" grumble dissatisfaction grumble.)
I hate be the one to break this to you, Will, but... you can't do magic. I'm sorry.
I feel like I should make a bet, but it's a poor habit to make bets on the tails of distributions. (Meaning I suspect that I'm slightly less sure I can't do magick than others would be but I'm still pretty damn sure I can't, at least not in a way that others would say could be legitimately described as magick.)
Based on http://predictionbook.com/predictions/3377 I'd think you'd have to assign at least a 5% chance that you can if I'm reading this correctly since this is only one possible method of using magic. Is 5% close enough to the tail that you don't think bets should be made over it?
No, that's a different reading of "can"; I guess by "can" I meant "I currently use magick but am unaware that I am doing so"; if we were talking about potential to learn magick then I'd have to put it at around 5%. Me unknowingly doing magick is more like a you know actually I'd rather not talk about that. Still probably a lot higher than others would guess but magnitudes lower than 5%.
Can you expand on what part of his situation would do that? What is the scenario in question? Someone shows up at your door tomorrow and tells you that you are a wizard? I'm still not clear what situation is the one in question.
What do you mean? I can understand the argument that random muggles aren't likely to be simulated to full fidelity and so entities that have enough processing power to act as observers shouldn't expect themselves to be random bystanders in a story about people they never meet. But this has nothing to do with decision theory so you seem to be driving at some other point.
It's really hard for me to answer your first question. Basically everything about HP:MoR has been optimized to be a good story, so I'm tempted to answer "everything", but I realize that isn't helpful. But for some reason I find listing things aversive. Um. Um?
The simulation fidelity thing is actually I think equivalent to the decision theory thing; or at least, fidelity of simulation is directly correlated with decision theoretic significance. I don't anticipate being understood and thus can't muster up the energy to try to be understood, recursively. I'm sorry. But the simulation thing is basically close enough, yeah.
I'm not sure someone in a good story would recognize that they are in a story even when it is highly optimized. From the reader's perspective Harry might be interesting but even from his perspective he's spent days in classes, he's spent hours listening to Professor Binns drone on, he's had to do tedious homework, and he's had 11 years where he was just like a lot of other very smart kids, many of whom beat him in math contests.
Right, if you start from decision theory then the prior is high and if you start from naive realism then the prior is really low, but I mean, the likelihood ratio started out high the very moment he realized he was abnormally intelligent and he had three last names, and ever since then it just keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and...
He lost in math contests, but I think he thought himself smarter than almost all other humans along the dimensions that actually mattered. He explicitly has a messianic complex.
The simulation part makes more sense to me. You mean to say that you think every relevant mind either lives in a simulation or thinks they do?
Please forgive me for asking, but do you want an Argument that Saves everyone who would exist in Tegmark IV? Because I don't believe this gets you there.
I'm pretty sure Killgore Trout's writings in Vonnegut's books would count. But Vonnegut's universes are hardly typical.
Sorry, not especially relevant, but your suggestion that Eliezer reuse clever ideas from previous stories just suddenly made me realize:
I really, really want to see V'olde'Ger vs. the Superhappies.
Which means whenever Harry and Dumbledore are disagreeing about the world being a story with Heroes, etc, Wil\l_Newsome would realise that Harry's skepticism was irrational and Dumbledore had it nailed.
I wish I could up-vote this multiple times. Do you know of any actual fiction written with this premise (that's also good)?
The pretty good 2006 movie Stranger than Fiction has a premise along these lines, and so does the 1914 book Niebla by Miguel de Unamuno (which I haven't read).
I'm not sure what specifically you mean by "this premise". Would the Dark Tower series by Stephen King count? That's the first work of literature that I'm aware of that had a sort of anti-Death of the Author (Resurrection of the Author?) as an actual plot point.
(For extra meta, the guy who came up with the term 'death of the author' was Roland Barthes.)
It might have a credible meaning, depending on how we explain the facts of time travel. Perhaps some agent inspires prophecies to help ensure a coherent timeline.
This suggests that HJPEV or Voldemort will, as a result of the prophecies, affect the distant past somehow and become their own metaphorical grandfather (e.g by 'erasing Atlantis'). But it doesn't have to mean that. Perhaps without post-prophecy Harry, Voldemort would simply have gotten bored with world domination and decided to kill his own grandfather again.
There may be theoretical considerations that suggest that prophecy works this way. There may be some framework where this is the simplest interpretation, sort of how many-worlds is arguably the simplest interpretation of quantum mechanics even though we can't observe other branches of the wave.
I... guess...
You know, it occurs to me that out of such renowned experts as Dumbledore, Trelawney, that unnamed Bavarian seer, the Unspeakables, and the centaurs...
I kinda want to know what Luna Lovegood thinks about prophecy before I decide what to believe.