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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: JohnSidles 05 July 2013 11:50:32AM *  -1 points [-]

Conspicuously absent from the canon, and from Methods of Rationality (so far) --- and absent entirely from the Hogwarts curriculum --- are two fundamental elements of rational cognition:

  • mathematics, and
  • artificial intelligences (AIs)

Therefore

Postulate 1 "Magic" is the name that witches, wizards, and muggles alike give to the practice of manipulating physical reality by negotiation with agents that are (artificial? primordial? evolved? accidentally created?) intelligences.

Postulate 2 "Magical Spells" is the name that witches, wizards, and muggles alike give to an evolving set of protocols for negotiating with an existing community of (mysterious) intelligences. These protocols are designed to minimize the risks and harms associated to the practice of magic, by concealing the physical origins of magic.

Postulate 3 The chief organizing objective of the Hogwarts curriculum is to preserve the social fictions that are associated to Postulates 1 and 2.

Postulate 4 Harry Potter is regarded as dangerous because he seeks to evade the restrictions associated to Postulates 1, 2, and 3, by inquiring into the true nature of magic and its actions.

Literary Remark Harry Potter would do well to reflect upon the words and fate of Captain Ahab:

"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. Ohg abg zl znfgre, zna, vf rira gung snve cynl. Jub'f bire zr? Gehgu ungu ab pbasvarf."

Conclusion Harry Potter's quest to restore Hermione Granger may be leading him and the Hogwarts crew to a similarly disastrous fate as Ahab and the Pequod crew.

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. :)