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ygert comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 17, chapter 86 - Less Wrong Discussion

9 Post author: Alsadius 17 December 2012 07:19AM

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Comment author: ygert 17 December 2012 04:26:06PM 2 points [-]

Who thinks that Lockheart was in fact possessed by Voldemort? It seems unlikely given that in canon Lockheart "accomplished" these deeds in a very different way, and there is no reason why he could not have done so here as well. (By the way on Predictionbook I estimated a 15% chance, but that is starting to look to high now that I am thinking it over a bit more.)

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 18 December 2012 12:10:46AM *  17 points [-]

Moody going after Lockhart is Moody privileging hypotheses involving Dark Wizards; nobody's a perfect rationalist in this story, and Moody's experience causes him to privilege hypotheses involving Dark Wizards and discount hypotheses involving Huge Wankers.

Comment author: drethelin 18 December 2012 07:20:31AM 13 points [-]

Well Lockhart sort of IS a dark wizard. From Moody's point of view he's someone obtaining power far faster and more effectively than he should, but even in reality he's someone who's systematically robbing people of their achievements and wiping memories.

Comment author: DanielLC 06 June 2013 07:01:37AM 0 points [-]

He wasn't investigating Lockhart. He was investigating a Dark Wizard. Every hypothesis about a Dark Wizard involves a Dark Wizard.

Comment author: thomblake 17 December 2012 04:49:07PM 4 points [-]

Almost certainly not.

Comment author: Tenek 17 December 2012 05:57:56PM 3 points [-]

I don't. GL's canon strategy provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for all his supposed feats, and I didn't see anything in 86 to suggest this is going to be a major divergence. I expect it'll go something like the other CoS reference - at some future point we'll get a "gee, looks like he's just a fraud, moving on" with a possible joke about him teaching Defense.

Comment author: DanArmak 17 December 2012 06:11:13PM *  1 point [-]

In HPMOR, there is no strong reason to think Voldemort is a disembodied spirit that needs to possess someone, rather than being and always having been embodied in the body currently known as Quirrel. I wouldn't give your estimated 15% to even the entire probability that hpmor!Voldie can or needs to posess anyone.

Comment author: ygert 18 December 2012 09:29:42AM 0 points [-]

While this may be true, it would be a large departure from canon. To postulate such a large departure from canon, we need a certain amount of evidence. The amount of evidence on that subject does not seem high to me. I give a ~60% chance that Voldemort is/was at some point a disembodied spirit. (Here is my PredictionBook prediction on the subject.)