Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 11

Oscar_Cunningham

EDIT: New discussion thread here.

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. With two chapters recently the previous thread has very quickly reached 500 comments. The latest chapter as of 17th March 2012 is Ch. 79.

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: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

As a reminder, it's often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

EDIT: New discussion thread here.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

In consequence, if ever Quirrellmort and Harry come sufficiently into physical/magical contact, Quirrellmort anticipates that Harry's brain will turn into a vegetable as Harry-Voldemort destructively uploads itself into the "real" Quirrell-Voldemort, leaving behind a stronger and more complete Q+H-Voldemort.

How about the other way - Quirrellmort uploads into Harry? Make Harry the Dark Lord, and then upload into him.
Note that Voldemort has seemingly already uploaded into Quirrell.

"My... Lord... I went where you said to await you, but you did not come...

"Sshow her your face," hissed the snake at Harry's feet.

Harry cast back the hood of the Cloak of Invisibility.

"The scar..." muttered Bellatrix. "That child..."

"So they all still think," said Harry's voice, and gave a thin little chuckle. "You looked for me in the wrong place, Bella dear."

Bella is not particularly surprised to find Voldemort in a new body. And while there are other explanations, having Harry masquerade as Voldemort does set the stage for him to do it for real. It also gets Bella on Harry's side for later in the story, so that Harry has support from both sides, as seems to be the plan.

But think of the denouement of such a scheme. Voldemort takes over the body of Harry, who appears to have saved the world from Voldemort a second time as Voldemort uploads into Harry! He rules a grateful and loyal world, which he has saved from himself. Could anything be more delightful to a Dark Lord?

Harry's objection to Quirrell's "We Need a Dark Lord Speech" even foreshadows the plot, as he identified the Dark Lord Dictator as a single point of failure in Quirrell's argument - the single point that in fact Quirrell planned on exploiting all along.

The first supposed loss to Harry was only part of the plan of creating a new and better host. The story line that Harry originally survived and Voldemort died because "mommy loved Harry, etc..." could not be more insipid. Much more believable that it was just a gambit of Voldemort, he laid low for a decade and came back as Harry became old enough to fulfill his role.

Also, the advanced power and intelligence of Harry makes sense as something bequeathed by Voldemort. But, much in keeping with EY's concerns about AI, the created tool will instead rise up and squash it's maker in the end.

So Harry is, in effect, an AI created by Voldemort, but one that developed an unintended value system and so turned on its creator?

Harry as Unfriendly AI. (Unfriendly from Voldemort's point of view, anyway.) Nice.