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PrometheanFaun comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 27, chapter 98 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: Vaniver 28 August 2013 07:29PM

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Comment author: alex_zag_al 28 September 2013 03:05:39AM 0 points [-]

re: magical insights, yeah - we could have theorized about how potions worked, but we could not test those theories the way Harry did. Since Harry has experiments we don't have access to, he has magical insights we don't have access to

Comment author: PrometheanFaun 01 October 2013 01:49:18AM 0 points [-]

I was referring more to that shadowy part of his mind that knows just what to look for. A source of insight that doesn't obey natural human cognitive constraints.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 01 October 2013 06:30:56AM 1 point [-]

This would be explicitly against Yudkowsky's stated goals for the story,

The Rule of Rationalist Fiction states that rationality is not magic; being rational does not require magical potential or royal bloodlines or even amazing gadgets, and the principles of rationality work for understandable reasons. A rationalist!hero should excel by thinking - moreover, thinking in understandable patterns that readers can, in principle, adopt for themselves. As opposed to the hero just being a born “genius” who comes up with amazing gadgets through an opaque discovery process, or who flawlessly pulls off incredibly complicated gambits that would fail miserably if the reader tried something similar in real life.

All he has that we don't is more facts. (Which is often a hindrance; it was easier for us to figure out Lucius's blood debt, because we had less "memory" to search through.) If he could also exceed natural human cognitive constraints, this wouldn't be rationalist fiction.

(source: http://hpmor.com/info/)

Comment author: PrometheanFaun 03 October 2013 08:12:31AM 0 points [-]

Assuming that Harry's Dark Side is integral to a significant proportion of plays(assuming rather than noting because my memory is patchy and I don't remember if it was like this or if the dark side was more a background character than an oft-employed tool), perhaps we could infer from this that EY considers it to be an natural state of mind that also happens to flourish rarely enough that no character Harry will ever meet is likely to be able to correct his misperception of it. I'd then assume EY must have visited it himself to write it.

Comment author: alex_zag_al 04 October 2013 08:46:12PM *  0 points [-]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a magical dark side. But I'd be shocked if it was a magical dark side that could think better than a well trained adult.

Now that I think about it, he definitely has a source of insight that doesn't obey natural ten-year-old cognitive constraints.

Comment author: Velorien 05 October 2013 12:05:06PM 1 point [-]

But then, it is pretty much the premise of this fic that Harry doesn't obey "natural" ten-year old cognitive constraints because he is a prodigy by birth (with top-rate education that has allowed him to draw on his full mental potential). That premise accepted, there is nothing implausible about his dark side simply focusing his mental capabilities and allowing him to reach new levels of performance (at the cost of limiting processing in other areas such as empathy).

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