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heredami comments on Open Thread, November 1 - 7, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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So I get home from a weekend trip and go directly to the HPMOR page. No new chapter yet. But there is a link to what seems to be a rationalist Death Note.
I am going to read it. Here are my next thoughts:
So, it seems like Eliezer succeeded to create a whole new genre of literature: rationalist fiction. Nice job!
Wait, what?! Is "a story where the protagonist behaves rationally" really a new genre of literature? There is something horribly wrong with this world if this is true.
Discussing with my girlfriend about which stories should be x-rationalizated next, she suggests HPMOR. Someone should make a HPMOR fanfic where the protagonist is even more rational than the rational Harry. Would that lead to a spiral of even more and more rational heroes?
What exactly could the MoreRational!Harry do? It would be pretty awesome if he could somehow deduce the existence of magic before he was contacted from Hogwarts. For example, he could start doing some research about his biological parents; after realizing they were killed he could try to find out the villain, and gradually discover the existence of magic.
Only one problem: MoreRational!Voldemort would have killed MoreRational!Harry as a baby. Using a knife.
An idea came to my mind. Would it be possible to make a story in which Harry is less intelligent, in a way that he would score less in an IQ test for example, but at the same time more rational? HJPEV seems to be a highly intelligent prodigy even without the rationality addition. I would like to see how a more normal boy would do.
One could argue that he appears intelligent only because he's spent his life so far learning effectively.
Rationalist!Harry is calibrated to match the knowledge and recall of a 34-year-old autodidact. Even presuming a very friendly environment and that said 34-year-old autodidact's training was not optimal, I just don't think there's enough time.
I can buy a 10 year old reading Ender's Game and The Lord of the Rings and maybe even Lensmen. It's a bit harder to imagine one that would consider wanting to want the math behind proving N=NP, nevermind going further than that.
I believe it's been stated somewhere that EY draws primarily on the skills he had around 18 and intentionally keeps things from beyond that out of Harry's reach. So Harry is more like a brilliant high school student than an adult (and, extra seven years worth of rationalist training aside, the way he approaches problems is a lot like a middle schooler with superpowers: "I can win, you can't, deal with it, 'cause I'm awesome and you know it." Which manages to annoy everyone in-universe and out.). Time isn't really a problem, either, if Harry has nothing else to occupy his time; exercise and social interaction are apparently not his thing, and he wound up out of the public school system after a few years, so he really does have way more time than most kids his age to read all the books. And he has that mysterious dark side and that sleeping disorder, whatever those contribute.
The other strangely adult-like children, however, are not so easily justified. (Draco gets most of those complaints, from what I've read.)
I wanted the maths behind relativity and QM at age 10. And I wasted a lot of time in school.