Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 15, chapter 84

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The next discussion thread is here.

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.

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: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

The next discussion thread is here.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that one of the premises behind both of these stories is that there is one objectively correct morality, given that a few basic definitions are shared. "If we agree that suffering is bad and that ~suffering is good then humanist, rational utilitarianism should follow directly," or something.

I can definitely agree that acting in a way that fails to optimally minimise suffering is >bad<. I can even agree that in a lot of cases, punishing bad people will minimise further suffering. The problem is (and this is the message that I got from The Sword of Good) no one sane actually thinks of themselves as the bad guy of the story, and it takes an Act of Rational Intellect to make a justified choice about which side is actually right about being right.

The upshot is that I balk at the "evil" label. People are bad and good, only cartoon characters are evil because they do bad for bad's sake. I guess in my head I think that to be a Dark Lord requires being Evil and not just bad. That might be a silly definition, since it means I'm essentially defining Dark Lords not to exist, but then again we only hear about them in children's stories and HPMoR.

Sometimes (not every time) I get a twinge of subconscious worry when EY primes his argument-cannon with rational powder but emotional wadding. It makes for incredible chapters - I get fully body pins and needles whenever Harry does something amazing with a dementor - and when the emotion is humanist triumphal awe then it's probably safe. I know the argument: there's no reason why rationality and emotion have to weaken one another; emotion aimed by rationality can work to good ends. I just don't want to confront a situation where Dumbledore ends up being the Dark Lord despite wanting to be a good guy and trying very, very hard - because there's the risk there of sending the message that we should not only fight against powerful bad people, but hate them because they are Evil for not quite being smart enough. I don't think that would be emotion aimed by rationality.

I know that's not the sort of ending EY would craft, I only wonder how we >would< write a Dark Lord Dumbledore ending, and how likely it is that he will.

EDIT: I just re-read the "Are you enemies innately evil" article that Xachariah referenced, only this time I read it from the point of view of a moral relativist. I have gained an insight into how the other side thinks. I have also found even more motivation to make hard relativism extinct.

A form of relativism does follow from naturalism, as does a moral system which favors ones own gains above the gains of others. See: the babykillers story.

Egoism and relativism are actually pretty powerful arguments. "Good" does not exist external to perception or experience. I cannot experience the "good" of anyone else's experience, except in an extremely diluted way through empathic networks, so in order to maximize the amount of good that exists I must try to maximize my own pleasure and achieve my own values. This doesn't preclude ... (read more)