It's the sort of thing that would be possible if popular conceptions of how memory is stored were true.
What? Are there any popular conceptions of how memory is stored? I don't think I've ever heard any.
One popular conception, if I've got my pop psychology right, is that [people believe that] memories are stored in brains like they're stored in computers; that is, they're archived at a particular location and are always in principle retrievable, even though it might take a lot of effort to do so. You'll see this popular conception in action if you watch children's cartoons where the plot involves going into a character's brain in some metaphorical way; a less high-tech metaphor might visualize the brain as a giant collection of filing cabinets (I'm thinking of an episode of Spongebob in particular).
Edit: New thread posted 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 86. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments.
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, 16.
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: