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loserthree comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 14, chapter 82 - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: FAWS 04 April 2012 02:53AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 06 April 2012 12:39:55PM 3 points [-]

A static copy couldn't learn, think, or experience time. A static copy is inert. I could imagine horcrux-magic automatically overwriting the brains of people who come into contact with them, so that Quirrell would become Voldemort, but the horcrux can't be static if Quirrell is still present in lobotomized form. In that scenario, neither one is a running copy of Voldemort.

But the idea of horcruxes as copies may be correct.

"Harry, how could Voldemort have survived the death of his body if he did not have a soul?" [...] "Good question," Harry said, after some internal debate about how to proceed. "Maybe he found some way of duplicating the power of the Resurrection Stone, only he loaded it in advance with a complete copy of his brain state. Or something like that."

If he didn't die at Godric's Hollow, perhaps he rescued Bellatrix to create a flesh and blood copy of himself from one of his horcruxes, and we really will be treated to the sight of two Voldemorts betraying each other. I'd like that.

Comment author: loserthree 06 April 2012 04:09:15PM 3 points [-]

From chapter 79:

old, old tales of wizards possessed, doing mad deeds, claiming the names of Dark Lords thought defeated; and there is usually a device, of that Dark Lord, which they wield

So the mind-state-thing is backed up to some kind of sustained magic on an object. And then whoever possesses that object is possessed by the mind-state-thing.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 April 2012 04:33:39PM 0 points [-]

Yes, I've suggested that myself elsewhere in the thread. I was pointing out here that if it's possessing Quirrell, not overwriting him, it can't be a static copy. A Voldemort emulation has to be running on either the horcrux or Quirrell.