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DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why would we doubt it? It's a fact that high level spells cannot be passed down in writing. Surely many wizards tried to, if only to discover which spells are "high level". Presumably there's a sharp distinction between spells that can be written down and those that cannot. If wizards occasionally invented new ways to write down spells previously thought to be "high level", then they wouldn't assume that any other high-level spells couldn't also be written down by unknown techniques.
The simplest explanation for wizards believing in the Interdict is that it matches their personal experience. The Interdict behaves like a law of nature; every powerful wizard would rediscover it, even without existing tradition.
I don't think Flamel wants to explain to anyone how to make it. Instead he hoards it to himself.
My primary reason for thinking this is due to narrative causality. Harry wants immortality for everyone. If Flamel was like Harry, he would not be in hiding, instead he would be a famous immortal wizard who spent centuries trying to teach the best wizards of each generation (like Dumbledore) to duplicate his feat - or making more Stones for others. The actual Flamel seems set up to be a deathist and eventual foe of Harry's.
The other possible explanation is that making the Stone requires harming others so much that it becomes immoral to make it. This is true of a certain other famous way of making the Philosopher's Stone, and it also matches the Fundamental Law of Potion-Making.
I don't think making the Stone requires an evil act, or Dumbledore wouldn't be an ally of Flamel, and he wouldn't harbour the Stone in Hogwarts. But it may require some exceptionally rare components, circumstances (like some conjunction of planets that happens only every few centuries) or skills making mass production of it impossible (at least until someone understands the deep laws of magic).
Possibly making the stone requires A POWER THAT THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT.
The Stone could be somehow Patronus-based?
Or he may not know how it's made. He says that Flamel assures him that Voldemort couldn't possibly make the stone on his own, so clearly Dumbledore doesn't consider himself fit to judge that.
if anything, this makes it more likely that the creation of the stone requires something Voldemort lacks - such as innocence, youth, or, oh heck, virginity.
Tentative: Maybe it takes liking living things-- Voldemort doesn't seem to have any sort of generalized liking for anything but himself and his snake.
Which is... what?
Is a spoiler for a certain other work of fiction, but basically involves killing lots of people. It's even less efficient than a Horcrux, which in principle can make one immortal person out of two mortals, because it requires killing ever-increasing amounts of people to maintain an immortal life. I think.
For those who want to know, the work in question is Shyyzrgny Nypurzvfg.
I was wondering about Illuminatus! but it didn't seem to be an exact match.
I have to say, I personally have not gotten the impression that Flamel was being set up as an opponent to Harry - and this "open secret" notion only makes this seem more likely (it's not that he wants to be the only immortal, but that he's the only one capable of achieving immortality, was my thinking.)
That's a good point about the Fundamental Law of Potion-Making, although since Hermione was talking about how all Alchemy needs precise magic circles I would guess it's a distinct branch of magic to Potions.
That would be more believable if he wasn't hiding himself and his Stone, and had spent a few centuries trying and failing to teach others to make Stones. Or if he had used the Stone to make as many more others immortal as possible, unless himself and his wife are the limit of its power. Or if he himself had made more Stones to give away.
You mean the stone that can be used to bring back Voldemort?
Well, he did make the recipe freely available.
Well, it seems like a smart design choice to include one companion in the allowance of Elixer - after all, the most common source of angst over immortality is watching those you love wither away, right?
Perhaps he wants a cabal of limited size, or doesn't trust people to be among the Immortal Few outside of his wife.
He could be the hero. I mean, if the stone was just handed to me, and I wanted to make everybody immortal I would need a distribution network, need a way to deal with the inevitable hordes of deathists, need a way to deal with natural resource consumption (which I don't think the stone reduces) such as developing interstellar colonization, need a way to get people to slow down reproducing....
Deal with economic issues, and the people who fail to update on their beliefs until the Grim Reaper updates for them....
So if the stone was just handed to me, I would form a cabal of about a hundred immortals and start rapidly solving problems (using unlimited budget) until I have it ready for mass distribution.
OHHH NEW IDEA!
Flamel will end up taking in Harry and they will bring about the end of death.
It's possible, I suppose. I don't think Flamel is intended as the villain, though. If he's just evilly suppressing immortality for the masses, then Harry will kill him and take his stuff. Seems like the Stone being an interesting aside and maybe minor McGuffin, along the level of it's importance in Canon, rather than rendering the main plot completely irrelevant.
So before there was a Voldemort he was tutoring others in making more Stones, then?
We don't know that. Maybe the recipe became known despite his wishes. Maybe someone else invented it and he just used it. Maybe it's a misleading or incomplete recipe he published, and that's why everyone has failed to execute it.
Including two companions would be twice as smart. Including a hundred companions would be a hundred times as smart. Restrictions on the number of companions must come from some external limit on the Stone's power, not from the limit of his desire. I don't believe anyone would say to themselves, I'm designing an elixir of immortality, let's make it include one companion, but not two, I only have one wife.
Well, that's not what I said in the part you quoted, but as a matter of fact my suggestion was that he tried and failed to teach others the secret. Because the conditions for immortality are narrow and rooted in virtue ethics and the like. That's my theory, anyway.
All plausible suggestions. However, I have't gotten the impression that Flamel was being set up as a villain. This is all speculation, and the fact that there are other possibilities does not mean my suggestion is somehow flawed.
I was thinking of Atlantian wizards or whoever designing this thing so it's worth having, but doesn't actually have a massive impact on the world. Obviously Flamel would have to be either evil or crazy or, most likely, both to impose such a limit himself.
It was a rhetorical question. My point was that I believe Flamel has not dedicated his life to either teaching people to make Stones, or creating more Stones himself for others to use, or even using his one Stone on others. And that is because he doesn't value the immortality of others, which is probably because he is a hypocrite deathist. And that will bring him into conflict with Harry when Harry learns of it.
It's also possible that Flamel will have a background story of trying and failing to teach others to make Stones. But if he had Harry's values, he would have dedicated all his life over several centuries, all his (putative) unlimited wealth and all the friends he could make with the promise of more Stones, to overcoming this failure. I predict that if there was such a failure, he has not Tried Really Hard to overcome it - he did not behave as though literally the lives of everyone in the world depended on it.
Not a deliberate villain, but almost inevitably someone who can be blamed for not making lots of people immortal.
Incidentally, if it really grants unlimited wealth, that is also sufficient to have a massive impact on the world. Think what someone could achieve, just by influencing others, if he had the power to produce and withhold arbitrary amounts of money, and lived for several centuries and so could enact very long term plans.
The P.S. doesn't grant unlimited wealth, it grants unlimited gold and/or silver. A large part of the value of Gold is related to it's scarcity, so teaching others how to make stones would affect Flamel's personal wealth - oh, and probably destroy society too. And making everyone immortal includes the Voldemorts, the Grinwalds, and Baba Yagas of the world. and it's not like he personally is killing those people...
See how easy it is to rationalize letting everyone die? And I came up with those in just a few minutes - imagine having six centuries to make excuses.
People already have well-known, cached thoughts excusing why rich people who don't share their wealth are not evil, and why death is really good and shouldn't be avoided. One doesn't need to think about it for centuries, just ask Dumbledore.
I am well aware that's what you believe, and it's certainly not trivially false. I was offering an alternative hypothesis.
But it's entirely possible that he really did try to save everyone, but his personal source of immortality was insufficient for the job. Hell, in canon at least he was still making original discoveries with Dumbledore, so he could well be devoting effort towards reverse-engineering the stone or developing a more useful version. But it's not all that terrible to give up on solving a particular problem, that may in fact be unsolvable, after you've spent centuries trying and may well have determined from theory that it cannot be done.
That's been the general assumption, but my point is that he may, in fact, have tried to save as many as possible (it's consistent with the recipe being freely available and with certain aspects of historical alchemy.)
That's unlimited amounts of gold. And he may, for all we know, be engaged in using his funds to improve the world (while trying to avoid detection by Dark wizards.) Or the lead-to-gold aspect could actually be a rumor, I suppose.
Certainly what you propose is possible. But I don't feel that it's probable. The goal of making many or all people immortal is of immense value. The effort devoted before giving up should be commensurate. The theoretical proof that it is impossible should be extraordinarily strong before people ought to stop trying to refute it.
How many centuries does the world's greatest alchemist have to spend on one problem before it becomes more useful to do research and use his vast wealth to benefit humanity?