So is the story "only tracing the path" where nearly all past time-turner use happens to have gone down the "good" branch?
On a charitable interpretation: every story ever written (excluding directly self-contradictory ones) describes a universe (quantum branch) which exists. Choice of story to write == choice of universe evolution to describe. Shminux just told you what evolution is described by HP stories. It's about as valid as saying "here's a story where magic works, although it never does in our own universe, and the reason is - there's such a universe out there and we just chose to tell its story".
Does that actually explain anything more than saying "it's magic, and here are its laws" would? Probably not. But it's still a perfectly valid statement to make.
Does that actually explain anything more than saying "it's magic, and here are its laws" would?
As I mentioned in the other comment, except for the actual appearance of a person from nowhere in the branched timeline, no laws of physics are broken.
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 85. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments. Comment in the 15th thread until you read chapter 85.
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, 15.
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: