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DanArmak comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 21, chapters 91 & 92 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: NancyLebovitz 04 July 2013 11:49AM

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Comment author: DanArmak 05 July 2013 12:22:47PM 8 points [-]

Abominable Conclusion 1: the AIs that first negotiated with humanity, thousands of years ago, to levitate objects on command, had insisted that humans speak the protocol words... Wingardium Leviosa.

Comment author: William_Quixote 05 July 2013 01:15:49PM *  11 points [-]

AI-1: And so we have decided to grant the humans great powers

AI-2: but when we bestow our awesome power upon the puny humans they may become arrogant and forget that they are small and ridiculous

AI-1: we've thought of that, and have a solution...

Wingardium Leviosa!

Comment author: DanArmak 05 July 2013 10:39:13PM 1 point [-]

Except that said humans won't develop the language where those not-words sound kind-of-sensible for a few more thousand years. And even then, most of the people in the world wouldn't get the joke. (Do French wizards cast French spells? What about the Chinese?)

Comment author: monsterzero 06 July 2013 03:11:07AM 2 points [-]

Do French wizards cast French spells? What about the Chinese?

Probably. Quirrell teaches at least one spell which is clearly neither of English nor Latin origin.

Comment author: DanArmak 06 July 2013 10:14:50AM 2 points [-]

Excellent point, I'd forgotten about that. Ma-ha-su.

Since Eliezer does nothing accidentally, this is very strong evidence that wizards invent spells with words related to the language they speak, and that spells then have a high turnover rate that doesn't let them survive longer than their languages.

Comment author: JohnSidles 05 July 2013 12:59:28PM *  1 point [-]

LOL --- perhaps a chief objective of the Ministry of Magic is to conceive and require obfuscating interfaces to magic! That would explain a lot!

Parallels to real-world high-school and/or undergraduate mathematical education ... are left as an exercise. :)