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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102

7 Post author: David_Gerard 26 July 2014 11:26AM

New chapter!

This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 102.

There is a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.) 

Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically:

You do not need to rot13 anything about HP:MoR or the original Harry Potter series unless you are posting insider information from Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Comments (370)

Sort By: Controversial
Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 26 July 2014 10:43:35PM *  2 points [-]

Rereading chapter 100 reminds me of the Twilight Sparkle lookalike among the unicorns.

it added nothing but confusion and awkwardness. If it were cut, no one who hadn't been told would ever realize that something had once been there. And now with this chapter we've got some pretty good confirmation that they're not sapient, so any inferences one might have drawn from it were false.

Comment author: Azathoth123 27 July 2014 12:13:27AM *  11 points [-]

I was under the impression the unicorn was Alicorn's cameo. Alicorn asked for a cameo as a unicorn, Eliezer agreed and even promised to make it plot relevant. I'm not sure what actually happened was quite what Alicorn had in mind.

Comment author: philh 27 July 2014 12:20:41PM 1 point [-]

There were two, one was Alicorn and the other was Twilight Sparkle (unnamed).

Comment author: shminux 27 July 2014 01:47:21AM 10 points [-]

So this is why this forum is dying, EY casting AK v2.0.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 27 July 2014 12:28:28PM *  7 points [-]

What exactly is this supposed to mean? (Besides being a joke, obviously.) Is it Eliezer's public duty to keep writing new Sequences for the rest of his life? Or what other specific duties on LW is he neglecting?

Eliezer is not a superhuman Friendly AI. He is merely trying to build one. Most of things that Eliezer could do here, someone else could do, too. Or we can all choose to sit and eat popcorn, and complain when we are bored.

EDIT: I guess you already heard something about reinforcement. From that perspective, is this a helpful reaction to publishing a new chapter of HP? It's as if someone gives you a cookie, and you spit on him, and then you complain about why he doesn't bring you cookies more often.

RETRACTED FOR DERAILING THE THREAD.

Comment author: ChristianKl 27 July 2014 03:47:48PM 2 points [-]

Eliezer recently deleted posts from LW but on the other hand doesn't write very much on LW. That's behavior that's not healthy for this community.

Comment author: Alsadius 28 July 2014 05:12:09PM 3 points [-]

1) I think we can hardly criticize him for not writing enough, given that he's about to spend a month writing a book for free for all of us.

2) It'd be pretty sad if having a moderator in place of a member was an active harm to the community.

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2014 10:05:28PM 1 point [-]

2) It'd be pretty sad if having a moderator in place of a member was an active harm to the community.

Moderation is about leadership. If you do it from the shadows it's not as effective.

Comment author: Alsadius 29 July 2014 04:22:29AM 1 point [-]

Leadership is not the essential purpose of moderation. The purpose is to raise the tone of the debate and make the community adhere to norms. If the active membership is pretty good at adhering to norms, and you just need to take out occasional trash, shadowy moderation works fine. LW has a dedicated core with extremely strong norms, and I suspect that even if Eliezer went into a coma for the next year and the site was completely unmoderated that wouldn't change.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 28 July 2014 08:08:02AM *  7 points [-]

If this community depends on Eliezer writing, that would be a huge failure. I think we were supposed to become stronger, try harder, and cooperate. We had enough time to do that. If a group of people cannot replace one person, then either we don't care enough, or we failed to learn our lessons.

But actually, I think we are doing it quite well. (By "we" I mean the whole community; I specifically haven't contributed an article yet.) When Eliezer was writing the Sequences, he wrote one article per day. We have on average maybe three articles per day. If this is not enough, then how much would be enough? Five? Ten? Twenty? Are we trying to replace Reddit's output? I know I would like to see twenty new articles on LW every day, but that's just my inner procrastinator speaking. If I were more effective in real life and spent less time on internet, I would be barely able to read three articles (and their discussions) every day.

Having more content on LW can be a lost purpose. To some degree it reflects the health of the community. For example, if we were doing many cool things, and writing reports about them on LW, there would be many cool articles on LW. I'd like to see us being more awesome. But it doesn't work the other way round: by increasing the number of articles we can't increase our awesomeness in the real life.

I didn't mind the deleted article, but I also didn't mind that it was deleted. It was a shiny thing for procrastination, with no other value besides signalling author's smartness and contrarianism -- something this specific author does very frequently. This is a thing we shouldn't reward. I certainly would hate if other people started writing similar stuff. Or if the same author started doing it more often. (And unfortunately, this specific author seems to have some creepy mind-controlling powers he's using to get a lot of upvotes here, so the standard moderation fails. I don't fully understand his strategy, but it includes writing obscure comments which seem as if the author has something very interesting to say, but he just never says it. And then he rewards people for trying to guess what he meant, or simply for giving him attention. Everything he writes serves the ultimate purpose of drawing attention to his person, and he is doing it quite well. It's trolling 2.0 optimized for LessWrong. E.g. read this, although he lost a lot of karma there.)

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2014 10:32:17AM 1 point [-]

I didn't mind the deleted article, but I also didn't mind that it was deleted.

It was more than one article. There are events that are more recent than the Will_Newsome episode.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 July 2014 01:40:26PM 1 point [-]

What were the more recent events?

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2014 01:54:45PM *  7 points [-]

To cite a facebook post from last Wednesday by XiXiDu (LW-name):

Yudkowsky is again going all nuts over Roko's basilisk. All posts pertaining Roko's basilisk have been deleted from the LessWrong Facebook group, and several people who participated in the discussions appear to have been banned .

Also: old posts on LessWrong critical of him or MIRI are now being silently banned. See e.g. the first post here: http://lesswrong.com/user/Dmytry/overview/?count=20&after=t1_6c8z

Comment author: Velorien 28 July 2014 01:07:28PM 4 points [-]

I know I'm not the first person to say this, but in case any of the moderators and people generally in charge are listening: as a peripheral member of Less Wrong at best, this is a significant factor in my reluctance to become further involved with the site and its community. When I come here and see extremely typical forum drama like the Will_Newsome debacle, it greatly reduces my confidence that this is a good place to learn rationality and find suitable role models for its practice.

I realise that's an irrational judgment in many ways, but that's sort of the point. I come here to learn to think rationally, I see poor behaviour from the people who are supposed to possess the fruits of that learning effort, and my gut instinct is to go away again (rather than learn the skills that would allow me to override that gut instinct and seek maximum benefit from Less Wrong in spite of its flaws).

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 July 2014 01:41:40PM *  3 points [-]

This is reminding me of Heinlein's "Gulf", which describes intelligence/rationality training, and then testing it under stress.

There are also the teams in HPMOR.

However, (aside from that I'm citing fictional evidence) there may be an important difference between maintaining rationality under physical stress vs. maintaining rationality while sitting comfortably at a keyboard under social stress.

Comment author: shminux 28 July 2014 03:45:16PM 1 point [-]

Uh, this was meant as a half-joke, and apparently it wasn't very successful. Anyway, this is a wrong thread to discuss the health of the forum. And no, I don't think that Eliezer has any public duty to the forum readers, if you were wondering. I was simply commenting on his disengagement, quite likely for very good reasons (like that he has a lot more useful feedback on FB).

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 29 July 2014 06:48:19AM 1 point [-]

I apologize for my too strong reaction and for derailing the thread.

Comment author: DanArmak 27 July 2014 12:44:49PM 9 points [-]

Eliezer is not a superhuman Friendly AI. He is merely trying to build one.

A true EY fact!

Comment author: Gorak 18 October 2014 07:23:18AM *  0 points [-]

Hypothesis: Harry lives in a close to post-singularity universe. The source of magic is a boxed AI, created by the Atlanteans and Harry himself.

Currently, the boxed AI can be manipulated by means of spells, potions and rituals and is acting as a limited outcome pump. Harry, in his quest to end death, will release the AI from the box, thus bringing about a true singularity end state and the foretold end of the universe as we know it.

The method through which Harry will achieve this (releasing the boxed AI while simultaneously being partly responsible for its creation by the Atlanteans in the past) will be a trick using multiple time turners and something like the algorithm Harry invented in chapter 17 for solving an NP complete problem coupled with Timeless Decision Theory.

If you build a device capable of factorising in less than polynomial time, you have a major building block of a supercomputer. If you can do it in negative time (solution before input) you've built an AI. Harry attempted this in chapter 17 but was stopped by a future Harry with the admonishment "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME" which Harry resolves to obey until age 15. That intervention could have been from an even further future Harry.

The theft of Hermione's body could also have been conducted by an even further future Harry which allows him to pass the questioning of the headmaster.

If Harry can figure out how to bypass the limitations of the time turner, that is all he needs to do to bring about the scenario I outlined, and build an outcome pump that will restore Hermione, be established as the source of magic in the past and the bringer of the singularity in the future.

I assign 60% confidence to this hypothesis.

Comment author: Velorien 05 August 2014 01:33:22PM 0 points [-]

Something I haven't heard discussed elsewhere:

Merlin created the Interdict because he believed, based on prophecy, that this would prevent the otherwise inevitable end of the world and its magic.

If resolved!Harry is "the end of the world", as per Trelawney's prophecy, then whatever he is going to do must therefore involve bypassing the Interdict of Merlin.

The only way we presently know to do that is Salazar's basilisk-transmitted lore, which is now probably only available via Quirrell (assuming he is Tom Riddle and Tom Riddle was the Heir of Slytherin who opened the Chamber of Secrets).

Hypothesis: Quirrell will teach Harry Salazar's ancient lore, which Harry will then use to "tear apart the very stars themselves" and, in some sense, end the world and its magic.

Comment author: 75th 18 August 2014 09:05:10AM *  1 point [-]

Merlin created the Interdict because he believed, based on prophecy, that this would prevent the otherwise inevitable end of the world and its magic.

He hoped it would, but he didn't live to ask the remaining seers if it actually worked.

If resolved!Harry is "the end of the world", as per Trelawney's prophecy, then whatever he is going to do must therefore involve bypassing the Interdict of Merlin.

This doesn't really make sense, or is irrelevant, or is sort of a tautology, or something. The Interdict of Merlin is not a magical universe-saving spell. If it were, as you sort of imply, then you would basically be saying "If Harry can destroy the universe, then it follows that he will not not be able to destroy the universe". But the Interdict is not that, nor does it limit what magic a person can use; it simply limits the transfer of the most powerful magics to only occur between two living minds. Merlin hoped that would be enough to save the universe because he counted on magical knowledge waning permanently.

The only way we presently know to do that is Salazar's basilisk-transmitted lore

Patently and obviously false. We've known since Chapter 77 that Nicolas Flamel has a whole bunch of knowledge he might someday share, and the whole point of Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres since Chapter 28 is that he can figure out magic that's long-lost or never-known. And the Interdict imposes no limitation on figuring out powerful magic on your own.

Comment author: ThisSpaceAvailable 02 August 2014 05:04:25AM 2 points [-]

Anyone else find the stuff about indifference to be rather deepish? Indifference has no power at all, it's the absence of power.

And now we learn that to cast Avada Kevada, you have to either want the person dead, or not care whether they live or die? So, I guess that means the only condition in which you can't cast is if you want the person to live, in which case you wouldn't want to cast it anyway.

Comment author: Velorien 02 August 2014 08:31:37AM 7 points [-]

Anyone else find the stuff about indifference to be rather deepish? Indifference has no power at all, it's the absence of power.

You're going to have to define "power" for that statement to be meaningful.

And now we learn that to cast Avada Kevada, you have to either want the person dead, or not care whether they live or die? So, I guess that means the only condition in which you can't cast is if you want the person to live, in which case you wouldn't want to cast it anyway.

I thought the point was that by default, a psychologically healthy human being assigns others' lives a value above zero, even strangers, and for Avada Kedavra you have to either overcome this with hatred (by assigning them a value below zero) or by indifference (by assigning them a value of zero). Both achieve the goal of expressing a preference for death (zero or below) over life (positive value), but the former requires an increasing amount of effort (because you're deliberately making yourself feel something) while the latter is "always on" and theferore doesn't.

I still don't see why repeat castings with hatred would require higher amounts of effort each time, but otherwise the concept is not incoherent.

Comment author: Philip_W 05 August 2014 10:08:22AM *  1 point [-]

I still don't see why repeat castings with hatred would require higher amounts of effort each time,

This is weird: In many cases hatred would peter out into indifference, rather than positive value, which ought to make AK easier. In fact, the idea that killing gets easier with time because of building indifference is a recognised trope. It's even weirder that the next few paragraphs are an author tract on how baseline humans let people die out of apathy all the time, so it's not like Yudkowski is unfamiliar with the ease with which people kill.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 26 July 2014 12:26:29PM *  9 points [-]

Not like certain people living in certain countries, who were, it was said, as human as anyone else; who were said to be sapient beings, worth more than any mere unicorn. But who nonetheless wouldn't be allowed to live in Muggle Britain. On that score, at least, no Muggle had the right to look a wizard in the eye.

Sorry, but I'm not a fan of this part - its not like Britain has immigration policies that ban certain races or religions, so I can only assume EY is arguing in favour of totally unrestricted immigration. But the UK has only a certain amount of room, and there are non-xenophobic economic arguments against unrestricted immigration, e.g. putting too much strain on the NHS. But regardless of the arguments for and against, arguing against immigration is not the same as being indifferent to the lives of everyone who lives in a different country.

I did enjoy the rest of the chapter however. Quirrel's statements about horcruxes were initially surprising - if he is telling the truth, then how is he still alive? If not, then wouldn't he want Harry experimenting with horcruxes in order to turn him to the dark side?

The most plausible possibility is that he wants Harry's help to get the philosopher's stone, and his initial prohibition is reverse psychology. This does help turn Harry against Dumbledoor, but no more than experimenting with horcruxes. Given this, it seems likely that he needs Harry's invisibility cloak / planning ability / human patronus / possibly partial transfiguration to capture the stone.

Still, Quirrel seems to be leaving this too late. Surely it would have been better to move against the stone very soon after the unicorn incident - by which time, Harry's anti-death ideology was very obvious, and emotionally driving. Moving against the stone when comparitivly healthy must increase the chances of success, and if it all goes wrong Quirrel could still have tried to fight his way out...

Unless Quirrel isn't actually as ill as he looks. He seems to have got a lot worse between May 13th and June 3rd.

Edit: I am not arguing that all immigration is bad and everyone should live in neoreactionary ethno-nationalist states. I'm saying that its possible to want to prevent certain people who e.g. have a record of violent criminal behaviour from immigrating to where you live, while still recognising that these people are still human.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 26 July 2014 07:38:18PM 3 points [-]

EY is arguing in favour of totally unrestricted immigration.

I don't find it surprising from a combination of EY's libertarianism and utilitarianism. Many libertarians are this way, and utilitarianism only adds more support for the argument.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 26 July 2014 10:16:10PM *  1 point [-]

That EY is in favour of unrestricted immigration I don't find too surprising, or objectionable, not that I would take his word on this - he's not an economist.

Magical Britain might discriminate against Muggleborns, but at least it allowed them inside so they could be spat upon in person.

What I object to is the implication that British people think foreigners are not even worth spitting on.

And incidentally, don't people get banned from LW? Even people who mass downvote are, it was said, as human as anyone else; who were said to be sapient beings, worth more than any mere unicorn. But who nonetheless wouldn't be allowed to post in LW.

Edit: On more sober reflection, the last paragraph is not the most intelligent thing I have ever written. It seems to equate banning/exile with preventing immigration in the first place, and I suppose there are reasons why you might want a website to have powers a nation-state doesn't anyway.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 26 July 2014 10:40:04PM 3 points [-]

And incidentally, don't people get banned from LW?

... so? The only ways I see that this provides an argument at all are so strained I feel like I have to be not grasping the reason you mentioned it.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2014 05:19:04AM 2 points [-]

Hmm, you might be right - I was unsure about this sentence when I posted it, but, well, politics is the mindkiller. Edited. The reason I mentioned it is because it seems to me that there are perfectly good utilitarian reasons for banning people from places without denying their worth as a person.

Comment author: Azathoth123 28 July 2014 03:33:12AM 5 points [-]

Any community, whether a website or a country, requires people with a shared set of norms (I probably what a more general word but I can't think of one). To maintain this it needs some combination of training/indoctrination of newcomers and excluding people who don't, won't, or can't accept them.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 28 July 2014 03:39:53PM 0 points [-]

These two things are far enough apart that arguing for one does not do much to argue for the other.

Comment author: Azathoth123 29 July 2014 02:06:27AM 3 points [-]

Yes, but the principal I stated is pretty general. Care to explain why you think it doesn't apply in the case of countries.

Comment author: Luke_A_Somers 29 July 2014 09:19:22PM *  0 points [-]

1) Countries are really big. There are multiple layers of sub-community, providing for much more diversity even in a country that isn't about diversity. LW is multiple orders of magnitude smaller than Britain even with lurkers counted, and if we only count the regulars, the same can be said of magical Britain.

2) Countries don't have a specific purpose. Websites often do (including this one, used in the example). On a website, simply going off-topic badly can be a bannable offense (not here, yes). A country trying to do that is farcical.

3) The example given above, that I was responding to, was about someone who was let in to LW, did some bad things, and was banned. This is the equivalent of exile. It was targeted and in response to an existing wrong. It was not done proactively for a broad category of people who had not done anything wrong.

4) Speaking of those people not doing anything wrong, "don't, won't, or can't accept [the community's norms]" might be a legitimate reason, but it was not the criterion applied in the example, even approximately.

Comment author: Azathoth123 30 July 2014 01:16:32AM 3 points [-]

Countries are really big. There are multiple layers of sub-community, providing for much more diversity even in a country that isn't about diversity.

Yes, but you still need standards for said sub-communities to be able to coexist.

It was not done proactively for a broad category of people who had not done anything wrong.

Depends on the website and the situation. Hacker News, for example, temporarily disables creating new accounts whenever it is linked to by a mainstream source. Also if a bunch of people from 4chan decided to show up here, I suspect you'd support proactive measures.

Speaking of those people not doing anything wrong, "don't, won't, or can't accept [the community's norms]" might be a legitimate reason, but it was not the criterion applied in the example, even approximately.

What example were you thinking of? In the example of immigration to the GB, if you listen to the complaints of the people against immigration, many of them amount to the above criterion.

Comment author: Azathoth123 26 July 2014 08:15:49PM *  5 points [-]

I'm not convinced utilitarianism actually adds support. At the very least Bryan Caplan's arguments rely on freely switching between deontology and consequentialism, frequently in the same argument, to work.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 26 July 2014 11:05:38PM 4 points [-]

How many billion people would be better off if allowed to immigrate to GB?

Utilitarianism is about counting everyone's utility the same. "Shut up and multiply" - where multiply is the number of people, not a weighting factor for how much you give a shit about them. That weighting factor should be 1 for all.

Not that I'm a utilitarian. But a libertarian utilitarian would have his work cut out for him to overcome the basic tenets of non initiation of force and weighing everyone's utility equally to justify limiting immigration.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 29 July 2014 03:14:26PM 0 points [-]

If immigration is open, it doesn't just benefit the people who move to the UK. It also benefits family members who stay behind-- the immigrant will probably send money home.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 31 July 2014 06:59:46PM *  1 point [-]

La Wik knows all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance

Remittances back to the home country often represent a sizable fraction of a country's GDP, exceeding all international aid and foreign investments.

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 03:22:59PM 2 points [-]

I'm not an economist, but doesn't that in turn harm the people who are still in the UK, because money is being moved out of the country rather than being reinvested in the UK economy?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 30 July 2014 04:23:49AM 1 point [-]

On the other hand, work is being done in the UK, but money is being taken out-- this should lower prices, at least for a while.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 31 July 2014 07:06:56PM 1 point [-]

The local buyers of competing labor benefit, the local sellers of competing labor lose.

If we're playing utilitarianism globally with decreasing marginal utility, it's a win,

If we're playing nationally, it's likely a loss.

Comment author: Jiro 26 July 2014 11:50:25PM *  3 points [-]

It's just the flip side of the utilitarian idea that you have to give everything you own to charity (except for the money you need to keep making more money to give to charity). Pretty much nobody actually does this, but utilitarianism demands it.

Except in this case, it's not about reducing your utility to increase other people's utility by a greater amount, it's about reducing the utility of everyone in the country to increase other people's utility by a greater amount. It's always easier robbing Peter to pay Paul if you are not Peter.

Or for another comparison, taxation. We could let in lots of immigrants, decreasing the utility of people already in the country for a greater increase in the utility of other people. We could also tax people in the country and use it to buy foreigners a whole series of things starting with malaria nets, again reducing the utility of people already in the country for a greater increase in the utility of other people. Yet taxing locals for the benefit of outsiders is something we only do to a very limited extent, and mostly when giving things to outsiders also brings us some benefit.

(And before you say libertarians don't believe in initiation of force, most libertarians are not anarchocapitalists and do think there is some role for government.)

Comment author: [deleted] 27 July 2014 10:01:33AM 1 point [-]

it's about reducing the utility of everyone in the country

What? If an employer is willing to hire the immigrant, this means that his labour is more valuable to her than her money, and if a grocer is willing to sell him food, this means that his money is more valuable to her than her food, so it'd seem like the immigrant is providing positive net value to the original population of the country, isn't him?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 27 July 2014 10:16:50AM 2 points [-]

If immigrants generally reduce utility for everyone in the country, would the same apply for the children of citizens?

Comment author: bramflakes 27 July 2014 11:55:17AM 1 point [-]

People intrinsically care about their children.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2014 02:26:08PM 2 points [-]

There is a middle ground between 'all immigration is generally bad' and 'there should be no boarder controls whatsoever'.

Comment author: Jiro 27 July 2014 04:42:23PM 4 points [-]

It means the immigrant is producing positive net value to a member of the country, but it can still reduce the average utility for every member of the country.

Comment author: Alsadius 28 July 2014 04:50:12PM 2 points [-]

But if it reduces the averages by raising every individual's utility and simply moving people from the "outside" group to the "inside" group who started with low utility, we can hardly call that bad.

Comment author: [deleted] 28 July 2014 06:29:56PM 2 points [-]

(This is known as Will Rogers phenomenon BTW.)

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2014 02:22:53PM *  1 point [-]

The UK, like pretty much every other country in the world, does not run on a pure capitalist economy.

Comment author: Azathoth123 27 July 2014 12:05:15AM *  4 points [-]

How many billion people would be better off if allowed to immigrate to GB?

This is just another version of the utilitarian argument for redistributive taxation and has a similar problem. Hint: consider what it is about GB that makes it such a more desirable place then the immigrants' home countries and how that difference comes about.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 27 July 2014 10:23:14AM 2 points [-]

This is just another version of the utilitarian argument...

Yes, that's my point. Open borders in general is supported by utilitarianism.

No need to try to convince me that utilitarianism has it's failings, I've been on board that ship for a long time.

Comment author: Azathoth123 28 July 2014 03:20:33AM 6 points [-]

My point is that a libertarian utilitarian can see the flaws in the naive utilitarian argument for redistribution. The naive utilitarian argument for open borders has similar flaws.

Comment author: Dentin 28 July 2014 11:20:53PM 2 points [-]

People would only immigrate to GB until there was no further utility involved in doing so. It's highly unlikely you'd end up with even one billion people there, even assuming that they could all fit.

Perhaps the phrase should not be 'shut up and multiply', but rather 'shut up and integrate'.

Comment author: Lumifer 29 July 2014 12:29:31AM 5 points [-]

People would only immigrate to GB until there was no further utility involved in doing so.

That was expressed better in Snow Crash:

"...once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity..."

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2014 02:11:25PM *  2 points [-]

How many billion people would be better off if allowed to immigrate to GB?

...

You can't fit billions of people in the UK. ( I guess that's not what you meant, but that's what it sounds like)

But a libertarian utilitarian would have his work cut out for him to overcome the basic tenets of non initiation of force and weighing everyone's utility equally to justify limiting immigration.

Well, an absolute libertarian could of course not justify the state doing anything. And a utilitarian could come up with arguments against unrestricted immigration - for one thing, perhaps it would be better to maintain at least some border controls but increase foreign aid? I'm not suggesting this is a good idea, it just doesn't seem immediatly ridiculous.

Comment author: MugaSofer 05 September 2014 05:05:19PM 2 points [-]

You can't fit billions of people in the UK.

You can, actually. It's called "the British Empire".

It was widely considered a bad idea the last time it was tried, but it is possible. The United Kingdom is not defined by it's current set of borders or locations.

Comment author: jbay 29 July 2014 07:33:23AM 3 points [-]

You can't fit billions of people in the UK. ( I guess that's not what you meant, but that's what it sounds like)

The gain in quality of life from moving to the UK would gradually diminish as the island became overcrowded, until there was no net utility gain from people moving there anymore. Unrestricted immigration is not the same thing as inviting all seven billion humans to the UK. People will only keep immigrating until the average quality of life is the same in the UK as it is anywhere else; then there will be an equilibrium.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 29 July 2014 07:50:31AM 3 points [-]

People will only keep immigrating until the average quality of life is the same in the UK as it is anywhere else; then there will be an equilibrium.

That quality will be substantially less than it is in the UK right now. That is why the current population of the UK, and any other developed country (i.e. any country with a standard of living much higher than the world average), does not want unrestricted immigration.

Comment author: jbay 29 July 2014 11:44:28AM *  2 points [-]

Yes, of course. But the net average quality of life is increased overall. Please examine the posts that I'm replying to here, for the context of the point I am making. For convenience I've copied it below:

How many billion people would be better off if allowed to immigrate to GB? Utilitarianism is about counting everyone's utility the same...

You can't fit billions of people in the UK.

If you are entering the argument with a claim that the UK's current inhabitants can be utilitarian and simultaneously weigh their own utility higher than those of other humans, then you should be directing your argument toward buybuydanddavis' post, since ze's the one who said "That weighting factor should be 1 for all". I am merely noting that not being able to fit billions of people in the UK is not a valid counterargument; net utility will still be increased by such a policy no matter what the UK's population carrying capacity is.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 29 July 2014 12:04:26PM 0 points [-]

But the net average quality of life is increased overall.

If that is an argument for doing it, it's also an argument for managing one's own home the same way. That ended badly for George Price.

I don't recognise an obligation to give my stuff away so long as anyone has less than I do, and I take the same attitude at every scale. There's nothing wrong with anyone trying to emigrate to a better place than they are in; but nothing wrong with No Entry signs either.

Comment author: jbay 29 July 2014 02:30:20PM *  0 points [-]

That's fine. Do you consider yourself a utilitarian? Many people do not.

For that matter, following Illano's line of thought, it's not clear that the amount that poor people would appreciate receiving all of my possessions is greater than the amount of sadness I would suffer from losing everything I own. (Although if I was giving it away out of a feeling of moral inclination to do so, I would presumably be happy with my choice). I'm not sure what George Price was thinking exactly.

Comment author: Illano 29 July 2014 01:31:37PM 3 points [-]

But the net average quality of life is increased overall.

I'm not sure this necessarily holds true. In very broad strokes, if the quality of life is increased by X for a single immigrant, but having that immigrant present in the country decreases the quality of life for the existing population by more than X/population, then even if a specific immigrants quality of life is improved, it doesn't mean that the net average quality of life is increased overall.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 July 2014 12:26:29AM 2 points [-]

it just doesn't seem immediatly ridiculous.

But it cuts against the grain of the fundamental premises of both ideologies. That's what I'm saying. The zero order application of both ideologies leads to open borders.

an absolute libertarian could of course not justify the state doing anything.

Not true. A state could always justly protect people willing to be protected from initiation of force.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 28 July 2014 12:59:23AM 2 points [-]

Not true. A state could always justly protect people willing to be protected from initiation of force.

Fair enough.

But it cuts against the grain of the fundamental premises of both ideologies. That's what I'm saying. The zero order application of both ideologies leads to open borders.

Yes, I agree that open boarders is the most obvious policy for a libertarian utilitarian, although more from the libertarian POV. Utilitarianism requires thinking long-term - redistribution of wealth by tax is clearly a utilitarian good in the short term, but in the longer term it might become harder to incentivise useful work and so the issue is not so clear cut. This is why its possible to be libertarian utilitarian, rather than a communist utilitarian.

In the same manner, the long-term effects of absolute open boarders might be quite negative.

Comment author: drethelin 28 July 2014 04:19:01PM 4 points [-]

The argument isn't about immigration to Britain, it's about a trade embargo between the whole Wizarding World and everyone else. There's one drinking fountain for wizards and another for muggles, only instead of both having water the wizarding one is full of healing potions.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 27 July 2014 10:18:28AM 16 points [-]

Sorry, but I'm not a fan of this part -

I'm not either. It lands with such a clunk. Maybe Magical Britain lets anyone in, but it's clear that muggles have few rights that Wizards feel they need to respect.

And that last line - ugh:

On that score, at least, no Muggle had the right to look a wizard in the eye.

It doesn't even make sense. You "have a right to look someone in the eye" based on the totality of who you are versus what they are. Selecting out one point on which you are in error and they aren't really invalidates the metaphor.

Given all that Harry finds objectionable and even barbaric about Magical Britain, how much indifference they have to the suffering of others, and how his allegiance is more to a scientific culture with rule of law, that last line seems largely just false to Harry's character. Whatever faults he sees in muggle Britain, he sees as many of more in Magical Britain.

And why is universalist Harry all of a sudden in a twist over muggle Britain, especially?

It seems much more like the line is a gratuitous crack of the riding crop to one of the author's favorite hobby horses. All pissed off about UKIP's recent strong showing in elections?

I find open borders consistent with Harry in general, but making that a particular outrage, and particularly aimed at Muggle Britain as compared to Wizards, really doesn't work for the story or for making the moral point.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2014 03:18:12PM *  7 points [-]

Agreed - it's a complete non-sequitur, crowbarred in with a tenuous link. And the wizards are far more intolerant.

I doubt Muggle Britain lets everyone in - for one thing, it has approximately the same ethnic composition as muggle Britain, for another, I seem to remember that Hogwarts is one of the best magic schools in the world, in which case parents would move to Britain, increasing class sizes until Hogwarts was approximately the same standard as other schools.

Incidentally, do Wizards in third-world countries have the same standard of living as first-world wizards? If so, they see no problem in letting muggles starve on their doorsteps.

All pissed off about UKIP's recent strong showing in elections?

This may be a slight tangent but I'm amazed (edit: amazed is the wrong word. I'm disappointed) at how the UKIP's performance has made many people lose all sense of proportion, and become thoroughly mindkilled. About half the discussion seems to be 'one UKIP supporter said something rasist/sexist/homophobic'. UKIP has 37 000 members. This isn't just an adhomen attack, its an utterly statistically insignificant adhomen attack.

Worse, a friend of mine who is a lecturer in sociology endorsed a plan to send bricks to the UKIP's freepost address, thus wasting their money. But if the UKIP supporters then send bricks to the left-wing parties, then all parties lose money and the postal system slows down. I would have thought a lecturer in sociology would understand about not defecting and keeping the moral high ground, but apparently I was wrong.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 July 2014 12:42:10AM *  3 points [-]

I'm amazed at how the UKIP's performance has made many people lose all sense of proportion, and become thoroughly mindkilled...

I bet the mindkilling predated UKIP's victory, and only afforded an impetus to action for those already mindkilled.

About half the discussion seems to be 'one UKIP supporter said something rasist/sexist/homophobic'.

Why do you find this surprising? That's the standard attack. It's simply background music.

Worse, a friend of mine who is a lecturer in sociology endorsed a plan to send bricks to the UKIP's freepost address, thus wasting their money.

In Western democracies, the Left fights for power and is serious about it. Any means available.

But if the UKIP supporters then send bricks to the left-wing parties, then all parties lose money and the postal system slows down.

When does the opposition to the Left ever respond with a little tit for tat? In the US, there are all sorts of people mouthing off big words about fighting government tyranny, while meekly standing by while their children are sexually assaulted by the TSA purportedly looking for nuclear weapons in their underwear.

I would have thought a lecturer in sociology would understand about not defecting and keeping the moral high ground, but apparently I was wrong.

What he understands that you don't is that his enemies won't fight back. If your enemies are fundamentally pacifists toward your aggression, why ever stop?

Comment author: hairyfigment 31 July 2014 07:01:25AM 1 point [-]

What are you talking about? (I couldn't find the one where a neo-reactionary asks Scott how many people he wants to kill.) Is this meant to imply some self-refuting statement about the LW community?

Comment author: buybuydandavis 31 July 2014 09:50:09AM 0 points [-]

I assume few people try to make self refuting statements.

I guess we're even, as I have no idea what you're talking about either.

Comment author: gjm 31 July 2014 08:08:26PM *  3 points [-]

I think what he's getting at is: the Right shows at least as much sign of trying to win by any means possible as the Left, and doesn't behave at all like a bunch of fluffy pacifists who never fight back when attacked.

[EDITED to fix horrible typo -- "off" for "of" -- which I think was the result of autocomplete on a mobile device.]

Comment author: MugaSofer 05 September 2014 04:55:13PM 2 points [-]

When does the opposition to the Left ever respond with a little tit for tat? In the US, there are all sorts of people mouthing off big words about fighting government tyranny, while meekly standing by while their children are sexually assaulted by the TSA purportedly looking for nuclear weapons in their underwear.

Ah, I'm no expert in US politics, but I thought that was a Right-supported program? With what little of the Overton Window that covers "this is an absurd overreaction" lying on the metaphorical left-hand side?

Comment author: buybuydandavis 08 September 2014 02:02:45AM 2 points [-]

Both left and right support the screenings, but it's fair enough that while this made for an instance of government tyranny that people might oppose but don't, it wasn't a good instance of one pushed predominantly by the Left.

Comment author: Azathoth123 06 September 2014 03:37:23AM *  3 points [-]

Well the right wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh opposed it from day 1.

Also I remember a left wing political cartoon from shortly after 9/11 implying that Republicans were in bed with the corporate sector for not wanting to nationalize airport security (which was then provided by private contractors).

Comment author: MugaSofer 06 September 2014 12:58:42PM *  0 points [-]

Ah, interesting! I didn't know that. Props to Limbaugh et al.

(Nationalizing airport security seems orthogonal to the TSA search issue, though.)

Comment author: Azathoth123 08 September 2014 05:16:57AM 4 points [-]

(Nationalizing airport security seems orthogonal to the TSA search issue, though.)

Private contractors hired by and answerable to the airports (and to a certain extend the airlines) have more incentive to not annoy customers than a national agency with fuzzy accountability.

Comment author: Lumifer 05 September 2014 05:22:08PM 3 points [-]

I thought that was a Right-supported program?

Unfortunately, it was (and is) a universally supported program. A pretty good example of Yvain's Moloch, too -- no serious political group can afford to be tarred with the "leave America defenseless before the terrorists" brush...

Comment author: Azathoth123 06 September 2014 02:53:11AM 3 points [-]

I'm not sure about that. At least I have a hard time finding anyone on the internet, in either political camp, who supports it.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 September 2014 01:40:39AM 1 point [-]

Look at it from the other side -- which serious political group loudly opposes TSA?

Comment author: Azathoth123 08 September 2014 05:18:38AM 3 points [-]

I remember a story about Rick Perry trying to pass a law limiting the kinds of things the TSA could do in Texas airports before relenting after the FAA threatened to ban flights to Texas airports if the law passed.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 28 July 2014 01:48:11AM *  3 points [-]

I bet the mindkilling predated UKIP's victory, and only afforded an impetus to action for those already mindkilled.

I'd agree, it has at most increased the mindkill.

Why do you find this surprising? That's the standard attack. It's simply background music.

"Amazed" was the wrong word, used in a sloppy rhetorical sense. 'Disappointed' might be better.

When does the opposition to the Left ever respond with a little tit for tat?

Well, of course UKIP didn't respond in kind, including when the prank escalated to sending blood and shit. And of course, it's UKIP who are the fascists, so let's hit them with sticks!

What he understands that you don't is that his enemies won't fight back. If your enemies are fundamentally pacifists toward your aggression, why ever stop?

Thing is, I do understand this, but maybe I've haven't fully internalised the fact an intelligent person can think that they are 'fighting the power' (he argues that UKIP are extremely similar to Nazis) while crushing anyone who dares to utter a contradictory opinion. I would say I can't understand this behaviour, but that would be purely rhetorical, because I do know what compartmentalisation is.

And when you have an iron grip on the moral high ground because anyone who disagrees with you is racist, then I suppose you can afford to defect constantly.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 August 2014 06:57:09AM 5 points [-]

I doubt magical Britain lets everyone in - for one thing, it has approximately the same ethnic composition as Muggle Britain

This should be false(r) in HPMOR, given the number of cameos from readers all around the planet. I worried that I was making Hogwarts seem unrealistically multiethnic, and then decided, hey, wizards have had Apparition and portkeys for centuries, it's a wonder they even still have national cultures.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 08 August 2014 07:52:33AM *  1 point [-]

HPMOR is more ethnic (and gender) balanced than canon, and IMO does seem to have a realistic ethnic composition given teleportation (as you mentioned) and border controls. But its nowhere near 50% Asian as one might expect if there were no borders.

BTW I hope I don't sound too critical. I have hugely enjoyed the rest of HPMOR and I just think that comparing real-world politics to Voldemort's indifference is unnecessary mindkilling.

Comment author: Azathoth123 28 July 2014 03:40:19AM 5 points [-]

'one UKIP supporter said something rasist/sexist/homophobic'.

It's interesting, especially given that no one seems to care that the current EU head is a not-quite-repentant former soviet apologist.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 26 July 2014 04:12:23PM 4 points [-]

I don't know where else to post this, but I've been entertaining a hypothesis about HPMOR's version of magic. Has anyone already made the connection between magic and Outcome Pumps? During the first chapters in Hogwarts, Harry talks a lot about expectations, and about magic being able to match them, and it ocurred to me that HPMOR's magic was a mechanism to force your universe to branch into one that matches your expectation. Then I read somewhere, in old threads, that EY was at one point in the past planning to write a story about a device to "squeeze the future," and I realized that HPMOR was it. Your wand is the device that squeezes the future and ensures you end up in the world you expected. Has this been discussed already?

Comment author: falenas108 26 July 2014 04:20:26PM 3 points [-]

The first experiments Harry did, where he told Hermione what the spells did but gave her wrong pronunciations, tested for this theory. If your idea is correct, the spells should have worked anyway. But they didn't.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 26 July 2014 10:15:57PM *  16 points [-]

I think we're seeing the set up of the end game of the upload of Quirrellmort to Harry.

David Monroe, last descendant of a Noble House, family killed by Voldemort, the great champion to save Magical Britain against Voldemort. But instead of having the mass of Magical Britain rally around him, they generally make his difficult. When that plan of being a savior fails.

He then disappears. Poof.

Where is our champion now?

And poof! Harry Potter, last descendant of a Noble House, family killed by Voldemort, miraculously ends Voldemort rampage.

Years later, Monroe reappears as Quirrell, just in time to be the Defense Professor and mentor for this miraculous Harry Potter, who in fact is miraculous, for his age, or really any age. With a secret Dark Side that gives him great power. With so many similarities to Quirrell in personality and intelligence. With such a natural bond.

Perssonalitiess change, mix with victim'ss. Death iss not truly gainssaid. Real sself is losst, as you ssay. Not to my pressent tasste.

But if the victim is already very similar, perhaps more to his taste?

David Monroe, 2.0. Prepared as a baby to be a host. Prepared with a better history to be Savior of Magical Britain, prepared to be so similar to Quirrell.

We've got Harry bringing up Horcruxes, Quirrell going beyond his usual psycho smirk to burst out laughing, Quirrell explaining that a Horcrux is a ritual that transfers intelligence to an object, but woe is me,

Merlin'ss Interdict preventss powerful sspells from passing through ssuch a device, ssince it iss not truly alive.

If only there were objects that weren't not alive that the intelligence can pass into, then they'd get all the powerful spells too.

Oh, and by the way, I was going to teach you all my powerful spells, but you never asked, and now there is no time, no time.

If only there were a quick way to pass all my knowledge to you, but alas,...

Quirrell has Harry begging for this lost knowledge. Perhaps he'd also be begging to be part of a ritual to pass Quirrell's intelligence into him?

Other things.

Why forbid Harry from bringing him unicorns? For that matter, why didn't Quirrell feast on unicorns again and again to keep his strength up? Why doesn't he have a herd of them up in a ranch in the mountains somewhere?

Harry turned, stared at the surrounding trees. "Have a herd of unicorns at St. Mungos. Floo the patients there, or use portkeys."

"Yes, that would work."

The Sense of Doom is diminishing. Perhaps this is what would allow their magic to interact, and thereby complete the ritual? Perhaps that's why Quirrell isn't more effectively fighting his failing health. Or is that only to motivate Harry to look into methods or fighting death with some desperation?

EDIT
On the "uploading to a new body" idea, see Quirrell rubbing their noses in their ignorance:

The smile that the Auror gave had absolutely no mirth in it. “So where’s the real Quirinus Quirrell, eh? Under an Imperius in the bottom of a trunk somewheree, while you take a hair now and then for your illegal Polyjuice?”
"You are making highly questionable assumptions," the Defense Professor said with an edged voice. "What makes you think I did not steal his body outright using incredibly Dark magic?"

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 27 July 2014 05:54:09PM 3 points [-]

For that matter, why didn't Quirrell feast on unicorns again and again to keep his strength up? Why doesn't he have a herd of them up in a ranch in the mountains somewhere?

Quirrell is too smart not to do this. I think he's pretending to be weaker than he really is, in order to manipulate Harry.

Comment author: solipsist 28 July 2014 02:31:39AM 2 points [-]

Do not try to obtain Sstone yoursself. I forbid.

This was said by Quirrell in Parseltongue. If you can only tell the truth in Parseltongue, then Quirrell was really forbidding Harry from obtaining the stone himself.

Comment author: mjr 29 July 2014 11:24:21PM 3 points [-]

Well. Technically the statement only describes the act of speaking itself. There is no explicit information conveyed about Quirrell actually wishing or intending Harry to follow his injunction.

Comment author: skeptical_lurker 28 July 2014 03:39:49PM 3 points [-]

Harry trying to obtain the stone by himself would be like Harry sneaking into Akazaban by himself. Harry developing a plan, and coming to Quirrel for assistance OTOH...

Comment author: buybuydandavis 27 July 2014 11:53:48PM *  3 points [-]

That's a good possibility I hadn't thought of. Too busy confirming my pet theory.

Quirrell's apparent weakness, feigned or actual, serves to manipulate Harry.

His actual weakness weakens the Sense of Doom, and thereby may allow their magic to interact. This is why I think actual weakness is still likely, despite the manifest downside. My pet theory is some variation on Quirrell uploading into Harry, and this is supported by a bunch of evidence I won't go into again. But if this is the goal, being able to interact with Harry, magically or physically, would be an important enabling factor.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 26 July 2014 06:46:14PM *  24 points [-]

Lets see: Data and implications, assuming Quirrelmort is keeping up his habit of only rarely telling direct lies: Dark and sacrificial magic tends to kill you in the end, and neither the original Voldemort, nor Quirrelmort had a fix for this. The horcrux spell forks your identity, imperfectly, and also carries wholly unacceptable costs to anyone moral. So, you know, nothing voldy cares about.

Theory: Facing his own inevitable demise from accumulated sacrifice damage, Voldy attempted to fix the flaws in the horcrux process - First he attempted to bypass the loss of knowledge by targeting a strong wizard as the possession target - heck, that might have been part of the point of the campaign of terror - to draw out wizards with real power from obscurity. And so he ended up fighting both sides of that war, because he took Monroe's body while still remaining Voldemort full time. The personality divergence from imprinting himself on a mind that strong, however, was more than Voldemort considered acceptable, and thus he targeted Harry. At a guess, he worked out how to remove the carrier object from the spell so that the death of Harry's mother would copy him directly into the mind of baby Harry - who being a baby, would have very little in the way of a personality. The change to the rite also involved torching his then-current body. Heck, maybe all he did was use himself as the horcrux- but this was acceptable, because it was falling apart from sacrifice damage anyway. All of which worked fine, except babies forget just about everything that happens before the fifth year of life so the immaculate transfer of Voldemort's entire mind got wiped by infant amnesia.

Lets see: Stone theories: "True power isn't what people say it is". Gold is not wealth - that is a wizard and goblin misconception, and youth isn't a mystical quality, it is a body functioning correctly.

I am sticking with my theory that the alchemist stone is simply the second level version of the Reparo spell. The one that works on people. - It grants great wealth because it works on everything, which turns second hand and broken magical items, art, ect, into a trivial source of income, and it makes you immortal because age is just damage. Heck, it will likely raise the dead as long as their remains are still recognizably "a broken person".

Comment author: hairyfigment 29 July 2014 07:11:35AM -1 points [-]

I feel extremely confident that the Philosopher's Stone is not Reductionist Reparo, though the idea did help me figure out part of the ending. First, the reductionist extension of transfiguration required a level of scientific knowledge that (I think) very few wizards before now could have possessed. And second, Reparo can't even fix Lupin's robe. You would need something to enhance the spell -- e.g, some artifact known to do so in canon. Fvapr Uneel unf yvxryl hfrq gur Pybnx nyernql gb uryc uvz genafsvther Urezvbar'f obql sbe fnsrxrrcvat, V cerqvpg ur'yy hfr gur Erfheerpgvba Fgbar gb trg nqivpr sebz ure (be sebz fvz!Urezvbar, nf ur jbhyq frr vg) nobhg ubj gb erfheerpg ure hfvat gur Ryqre Jnaq. Gubhtu vg pbhyq or fbzr bgure qrnq crefba jvgu xabjyrqtr bs gur Qrnguyl Unyybjf yrtraq/cebcurpl.

I feel much less confident about rejecting the rest. But remember that nobody saw "Voldemort" die. While the Professor could perhaps be lying about V killing the basilisk -- it seems like a useful way to recover one's magical knowledge post-Horcrux -- I think he's still using his original body and just following the rules ("whatever my true vulnerability is, I will fake a different one.")

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 09:53:42AM 1 point [-]

I don't think rot13 is necessary here, as you're posting speculation.

The Resurrection Stone, if Quirrell is to be believed, cannot provide the user with any new information. It is thus useless to Harry unless it has as-yet unrevealed additional special functions when combined with other Deathly Hallows.

Also, do you have any evidence for your first sentence?

Comment author: hairyfigment 29 July 2014 03:44:06PM 0 points [-]

Harry is the one who brought up the Resurrection Stone with the assumption that it behaved like other devices, in the aptly named chapter, "Pretending to be Wise, Pt 2". The Defense Professor is the one who reacted as if shocked to the news that - if his genealogy search went the way Voldemort's did in canon - he already had the artifact:

Harry said hastily, "I did think fast enough not to suggest the obvious idea about the Resurrection Stone in front of Dumbledore. Have you ever seen a stone with a line, inside a circle, inside a triangle?"

The deathly chill seemed to draw back, fold into itself, as the ordinary Professor Quirrell returned. "Not that I can recall," Professor Quirrell said after a while, a thoughtful frown on his face. "That is the Resurrection Stone?"

Harry set aside his teacup, then drew on his saucer the symbol he had seen on the inside of his cloak. And before Harry could take out his own wand to cast the Hover Charm, the saucer went floating obligingly across the table toward Professor Quirrell. Harry really wanted to learn that wandless stuff, but that, apparently, was far above his current curriculum.

Professor Quirrell studied Harry's tea-saucer for a moment, then shook his head; and a moment later, the saucer went floating back to Harry.

Harry put his teacup back on the saucer, noting absently as he did so that the symbol he'd drawn had vanished. "If you happen to see a stone with that symbol," said Harry, "and it does talk to the afterlife, do let me know. I have a few questions for Merlin or anyone who was around in Atlantis."

"Quite," said Professor Quirrell. Then the Defense Professor lifted up his teacup again, and tipped it back as though to finish the last of what was there. "By the way, Mr. Potter, I fear we shall have to cut short today's visit to Diagon Alley. I was hoping it would - but never mind. Let it stand that there is something else I must do this afternoon."

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 04:25:41PM *  1 point [-]

This being Quirrell, while his reaction may indicate shock, it is also exactly how he would react if he did not have the artefact and/or believed it to be worthless in any case. There isn't enough information there to make any assumptions either way.

Also, in Chapter 90, Quirrell visibly fails to refute Harry's assumption:

"What of the Resurrection Stone of Cadmus Peverell, if it could be obtained for you?"

The boy shook his head. "I don't want an illusion of Hermione drawn from my memories. I want her to be able to live her life -" the boy's voice cracked. "I haven't decided yet on an object-level angle of attack. If I have to brute-force the problem by acquiring enough power and knowledge to just make it happen, I will."

Another pause.

"And to go about that," the man in the corner said, "you will use your favorite tool, science."

Comment author: hairyfigment 30 July 2014 09:53:14PM *  -1 points [-]

Are you saying you'd like to bet on something? Before you answer:

  • The archaic-English saying about the Deathly Hallows looks like a prophecy. And from an out-of-story or Doylist perspective, it could also come true without definitively being one.
  • "But like all superpowers, long-range life extension can only be acquired by seeing, with a shock, that some way of getting it is perfectly normal." We can rule out an emergent property of the three Hallows in combination. We can mostly rule out someone breaking the established rules of time travel (though I have to qualify that because I don't know how prophecy works). Whereas the Elder Wand increasing the power of Repair Charms seems pretty normal within the story. We've also established that sufficient reductionism can alter spells.
  • As I said in my sibling comment, I think you're wrong about the meaning of the Professor's actions - but let's make a much narrower assumption. Let's say a "Resurrection Stone" manifestation can give Harry facts he doesn't consciously remember. That would likely suffice to tell him about the Wand's abilities or appearance. He might or might not need the Stone to also hint at a simple deduction, one that at least one dead person known to him could probably have made.
Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 July 2014 04:49:14AM *  1 point [-]

Dark and sacrificial magic tends to kill you in the end, and neither the original Voldemort, nor Quirrelmort had a fix for this.

I'd say that it tends to kill your host meat sack. Not a problem if you can hop to a new one.

The horcrux spell forks your identity

The problem being the lack of continuity,

No continuity of ... sself, you would go on thinking after making the horcrux, then sself with new memoriess diess and iss not resstored -

Which would be avoided if your current host body dies in the transfer.

First he attempted to bypass the loss of knowledge by targeting a strong wizard as the possession target

I don't think that is necessary:

Alsso Merlin'ss Interdict preventss powerful sspells from passing through ssuch a device, ssince it iss not truly alive.

If the burst is channeled into a living person instead of a device, then Merlin's Interdict is avoided.

He transfers to a powerful wizard because that's the good place to be. Better than a rat.

And so he ended up fighting both sides of that war, because he took Monroe's body while still remaining Voldemort full time.

I think that's true. The war was not about taking over as the Dark Lord, it was about taking over as the Savior from the Dark Lord, as it is planned to be again with Harry.

See my top level post for a more fleshed out version of how I think Quirrell is preparing to upload to Harry.

Comment author: Velorien 28 July 2014 09:57:26AM 0 points [-]

The problem being the lack of continuity, Which would be avoided if your current host body dies in the transfer.

I don't think that's how continuity of self works. Suppose I, Velorien A, cast the horcrux spell. I continue to exist, and now I have created a Velorien B, an imperfect copy in a younger, healthier body. When Velorien A dies, whether instantly or in a number of years, I die. Velorien B will continue to exist. From an external perspective, yes, there was one old/ill Velorien, and now there is one young/healthy Velorien. From the perspective of Velorien B, he is Velorien A but in a younger, healthier body. But from my perspective... well, I don't have a perspective, because I'm dead.

Comment author: [deleted] 27 July 2014 09:34:28AM 6 points [-]

All of which worked fine, except babies forget just about everything that happens before the fifth year of life so the immaculate transfer of Voldemort's entire mind got wiped by infant amnesia.

I assumed that babies just didn't store long-term memories in the first place, but I've looked it up on Wikipedia and it sounds like I was mistaken. Huh.

Comment author: luser 16 January 2015 09:54:11PM 1 point [-]

As horcruxes were explained they are quite substantial evidence that quirrel is not voldermort.

If voldermort could use them then he would take over world in year, He would first kidnap two wizards to make copy of himself which would be loyal to him and would quickly relearn all spells and kindap four other wizards and grow exponentially.

So likely explanation is as Quirrel said personality is completely different and after first forking to quirrel decided to fight voldermort and they do not try copy himself again.

Comment author: Velorien 17 January 2015 12:17:44PM 1 point [-]

Why would Voldemort's copies be loyal to him? If they share Voldemort's personality, then they also share his desire to dominate, and the original was never known for willingness to share power.

Comment author: buural 20 August 2014 05:58:28AM 4 points [-]

Has anyone compiled a list of Chekhov's guns that haven't been fired yet in the story so far? Off the top of my head, I have:

  • Bacon's diary
  • Bellatrix Black
  • Sirius Black (incidentally a candidate for the Cloak and Hat, who possibly knows limitations of the Marauders' map)
  • Traps on the third floor
  • Significance of Dumbledore writing in Lily Potter's potion's book
  • Lesath Lestrange
  • Harry's 'shopping list' given to Gred and Forge
  • The missed glint in the Godric's Hollow graveyard
  • Chamber of Secrets / Salazar's snake?
  • Secrets of spell creation (which Quirrel is so keen on keeping away from Harry)

Anything else?

Comment author: gjm 27 August 2014 01:08:44AM *  3 points [-]

Many of these don't exactly count as Chekhov's guns, but they have this in common with your Chekhov's guns: They seem like substantial unresolved things and I will be disappointed if the end of HPMOR leaves a lot of them unresolved:

  • Prophecies about Harry and the end of the world (for some values of "end" and "world").
  • How magic works (e.g., why you have to say "Wingardium Leviosa" to make things float; resolving this may be more or less equivalent to resolving spell creation).
  • Harry's intention of defeating death, perhaps in some fashion that involves the Deathly Hallows.
  • The list of locations discussed by Harry and Quirrell, which may or may not correspond to Horcrux hiding places or something.
  • Harry's "power that the Dark Lord knows not"; probably not either Science or partial transfiguration, but unlikely to be "love" as in Rowling.
  • What's wrong (and how genuinely) with Quirrell.
  • The interaction between Harry's and Quirrell's magic (kinda the same as in Rowling? maybe, or maybe not).
  • Harry's vow to do away with Azkaban and the use of Dementors to guard human beings.
  • Harry's debt to Lucius Malfoy. (Or -- I forget -- did that get cancelled somehow when Hermione got killed?)
  • What, if anything, Harry was doing after Hermione's death; e.g., is he carrying her transfigured corpse around or something?
  • Harry's "father's rock" (just transfiguration practice? actually some powerful magical artefact in disguise? etc.)
  • What really happened in Godric's Hollow when Harry was a baby.
  • Exactly what Quirrell's plans really are. (On some plausible theories, closely related to what happened in Godric's Hollow.)
Comment author: [deleted] 26 August 2014 08:04:27PM 2 points [-]

I'm not sure the missed glint in the Godric's Hollow graveyard was a Chekhov's gun. I took it as the final resting place of one or more of the Peverell brothers, which responded to Harry's declaration against death. In other words I think its relevance was fully explained in the context of that chapter, and wasn't left expecting any more from it.

Comment author: buural 15 August 2014 08:24:52AM 4 points [-]

Hypothesis:

  • The prophesied 'end of the world' will involve meddling with Time.

Some semi-random observations/conjectures supporting the hypothesis:

  • The 6-hour information transfer limit is tied to the Interdict of Merlin. A 6-hour timeframe seems rather arbitrary in terms of describing a purely natural constraint of the underlying physical reality. It makes perfect sense, on the other hand, as a human-designed complementary measure of enforcing the Interdict as otherwise wizards would be traveling back in time to learn from old masters before their deaths, thereby negating the Interdict.

  • The whole plot generally revolves around paradoxes and uses of Time. Atlantis is supposedly 'erased from Time' (not destroyed). Hogwarts castle's random changes have time patterns (certain years and days in the week). References to students getting lost and coming back as old men or going higher than the castle's highest level (implying shifting passageways transporting people into Hogwarts castles in some alternative times/realities?).

  • Repeated allusions to Harry destroying stars is unlikely to be referring to a literal physical annihilation of all visible stars. I would place a much higher probability on the possibility that the current time/reality in which Hermione is irrevocably dead will be destroyed as a result of Harry deciding to change the fact.

  • What spells are most likely to be declared so dangerous to warrant the Interdict? No magic (aside from Time travel), no matter how destructive, comes even close in my mind to justify Merlin sacrificing himself to impose this rather oppressive restriction that limits indirect information exchange of ALL wizards in ALL of time, present AND future!

  • The first time we hear Quirrelmort's inner monologue is when we learn that he is honestly afraid of what Harry will do. I cannot think realistically what Harry can do to threaten his 'modified' interstellar probe at present time unless he can prevent it being modified (horcruxed?) to start with, i.e. go back in time.

  • Time paradoxes are ruled out. Why? Because reality is somehow ensuring consistency? But then, how could Atlantis 'erase' itself from Time? I assign much higher probability that this restriction is designed as part of the Interdict again rather than a naturally occurring phenomenon.

Thoughts?

Comment author: [deleted] 26 August 2014 07:42:58PM 1 point [-]

I thought "destroying stars" was pretty simple: Dyson spheres. That's not actual destruction per se, but from a Centaur's perspective...

Comment author: 75th 18 August 2014 08:31:30AM *  2 points [-]

the current time/reality in which Hermione is irrevocably dead will be destroyed as a result of Harry deciding to change the fact.

Harry himself appears to be pretty firmly set against that:

"And while I hate to get all PHILOSOPHICAL," Harry desperately tried to lower his voice to something under a shriek, "has anyone thought about the IMPLICATIONS of going back six hours and doing something that changes time which would pretty much DELETE ALL THE PEOPLE AFFECTED and REPLACE THEM WITH DIFFERENT VERSIONS -"

So I wouldn't say never, but I think it would take something extraordinary, considerably more so even than Hermione's death, to drive him to that.


I cannot think realistically what Harry can do to threaten his 'modified' interstellar probe at present time unless he can prevent it being modified (horcruxed?) to start with, i.e. go back in time.

At the time Quirrell begins his freakout, he doesn't know what form it will take, either. He just heard that "HE IS THE END OF THE WORLD" and that's all he needs to know. He may get clued in a bit more later on, when he overhears Firenze talking to Harry. Clearly, Harry is going to acquire a massive amount of power he doesn't already have, but I don't see any particular reason to promote the option of super-duper-time-travel to the fore.

Comment author: TylerJay 13 August 2014 05:25:05AM 3 points [-]

Not related to CH102, but I just realized that "Slytherin System" messages are a physical implementation of Tor. Entry node who knows only the sender and the middle node, middle node who knows only the entry and exit nodes, exit node who knows only the middle node and the receiver.

Comment author: gwern 19 August 2014 01:02:52AM 1 point [-]

Yep. I enjoyed seeing a mix net in MoR. Incidentally, can you see any weaknesses in the Slytherin System as described?

Comment author: pushcx 19 August 2014 03:26:16PM 2 points [-]

Sure: there's no indication of delivery, so you don't even know if one of the hops in your message opened all the envelopes, took all the money, read your private note, and trashed it.

Comment author: 75th 09 January 2015 10:35:48PM 1 point [-]

I think there's a bonus feature to having two hops in the middle. If the sender finds that the recipient never received the message, he immediately distrusts his first hop and perhaps publishes the knowledge. If the first hop wasn't the culprit, he either publishes the second hop's unreliability or takes horrible devious Slytheriny vengeance on them.

So, due to mutually assured destruction, neither hop wants to defect and risk losing a nice income source permanently.

Comment author: gwern 19 August 2014 05:13:18PM 1 point [-]

Yes, without public-key crypto or at least crypto of some sort, you easily lose any secrecy to any bad actors in the mix net. But the absence of dummy messages or very high traffic also means you don't necessarily get anonymity either: just observe everyone in the System.

Comment author: 75th 29 July 2014 08:50:30PM *  3 points [-]

/u/solipsist, in another comment on this thread:

Do not try to obtain Sstone yoursself. I forbid.

This was said by Quirrell in Parseltongue. If you can only tell the truth in Parseltongue, then Quirrell was really forbidding Harry from obtaining the stone himself.

If Quirrell can't lie in Parseltongue (and not just Harry, since Harry's speaking as a standard Parselmouth but Quirrell is speaking as a sentient snake), and if that prohibition enforces the sincerity of imperative commands and not just declarative statements, then clearly what Quirrell is saying is that Harry should try to make his own Philosopher's Stone.

"It's not a secret." Hermione flipped the page, showing Harry the diagrams. "The instructions are right on the next page. It's just so difficult that only Nicholas Flamel's done it."


"Well, it can't work," Hermione said. She'd flown across the library to look up the only book on alchemy that wasn't in the Restricted Section. And then - she remembered the crushing letdown, all the sudden hope dissipating like mist. "Because all alchemical circles have to be drawn 'to the fineness of a child's hair', it isn't any finer for some alchemies than others. And wizards have Omnioculars, and I haven't heard of any spells where you use Omnioculars to magnify things and do them exactly.

So the first thing Hermione mentions as a limitation of doing alchemy is the insane precision of the circle you have to draw. But what if there were already an acceptable, permanent alchemy setup just lying around somewhere where Harry could get to it?

The three of them stood within the Headmaster's private Transfiguration workroom, where the shining phoenix of Dumbledore's Patronus had told her to bring Harry, moments after her own Patronus had reached him. Light shone down through the skylights and illuminated the great seven-pointed alchemical diagram drawn in the center of the circular room, showing it to be a little dusty, which saddened Minerva. Transfiguration research was one of Dumbledore's great enjoyments, and she'd known how pressed for time he'd been lately, but not that he was this pressed.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 30 July 2014 09:12:30AM 3 points [-]

So the first thing Hermione mentions as a limitation of doing alchemy is the insane precision of the circle you have to draw.

I guess I know what Harry told Fred/George to buy him in Chapter 98. The greatest alchemist tool ever! :D

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 09:36:46PM 3 points [-]

On the other hand,

"Because all alchemical circles have to be drawn 'to the fineness of a child's hair', it isn't any finer for some alchemies than others.

strongly implies that different alchemical procedures require different circles. What are the odds that Dumbledore just happens to have the right circle for philosopher's stone creation ready, given that he has no desire for immortality, no special need for gold, and access to an existing philosopher's stone anyway?

Comment author: Will_Newsome 29 July 2014 01:00:43AM 11 points [-]

If there is evidence for X in MOR and/or canon then it’s fine to post about X without rot13, even if you also have heard privately from Eliezer that X is true. But you should not post that “Eliezer said X is true” unless you use rot13.

Oh, I guess I can post this then: V jnf ng n jrqqvat cnegl guvat n srj lrnef onpx jurer Ryvrmre pbasvezrq gung lbh pna'g yvr va Cnefrygbathr; gur engvbanyr tvira jnf gung Fnynmne jvfurq gb sbfgre pbbeqvangvba orgjrra uvf urvef. V'z abg 100% fher V'z erzrzorevat pbeerpgyl ohg V'z cerggl fher.

Comment author: William_Quixote 28 July 2014 07:20:51PM *  6 points [-]

We learn a number of very interesting things in this chapter. I'll focus on one area

-Like with horcrux sspell, abssurdity [of the stone] hidess true ssecret. -True Sstone iss not what that legend ssayss. -True power iss not what sstoriess claim. -Sstone iss powerful healing device in truth.

So it's confirmed it exists and that it isn't what people think and that it's power / mechanism isn't what people think.

This is important because thinking back to Harry's early experiments with Hermione, he discovered that if you don't know what a spell does or have been told something completely in the wrong space the spell doesn't work at all. If you know generally what it does, it still works as long as you pronounce it correctly. (The later is also confirmed by the 'for enemies' spell).

In the library Hermione told Harry that the spell is published but no one has been able to actually perform it (nominally due to difficulty). If they all think it does something other than what it actually does, that explains it and is consistent with the book's theory of magic.

Also worth noting, Hermione was killed shortly after she began looking into the stone in earnest.

-Sstone's ssuppossed maker wass not one who made it. -One who holdss it now, wass not born to name now ussed. -One who holdss Sstone iss repossitory of much lore. -Taught sschoolmasster many ssecretss.

This part also seems very important. We get a new "major player". This player is powerful enough that QQ couldn't just take the stone and also powerful enough to have taught Dumbeldore many things (and Dumbeldore is thought to be the most powerful wizard in centuries). So here is a behind the scenes power on par or stronger than either major player in the last war.

Nick Flamel seems to just be the most recent alias for this other player, who has probably been around for a long time. For my money, I predict NF is really Baba Yaga ("the undying"). She's been named dropped too often to not make an appearance, and her being NF allows her to have been around all along instead of being an unsatisfying last chapter walk on.

Comment author: Hyphen-ated 29 July 2014 06:31:07AM *  1 point [-]

-One who holdss it now, wass not born to name now ussed. -One who holdss Sstone iss repossitory of much lore. -Taught sschoolmasster many ssecretss.

I've been under the impression through the whole story that Harry's father's rock is the philosopher's stone. Is Quirrel just referring to Harry here?

The Harry we know wasn't "born to the name now used", or really born at all, because his current self comes from a merger of the original Harry and Voldemort.

Harry is the repository of much lore about science.

Harry has taught Dumbledore many "secrets" about muggle science and rationality. (hasn't he? I can't remember any specifics because I haven't done a reread in a long time)

Comment author: William_Quixote 29 July 2014 04:06:36PM 1 point [-]

Hmm I hadn't thought the rock was the stone. That would be a great twist, but I doubt it because Dumbeldore said it was not magical to his knowledge when Harry asked him.

Also even if it is the stone, I don't think QQ knows this.

Comment author: ChristianKl 29 July 2014 12:45:59PM 1 point [-]

I've been under the impression through the whole story that Harry's father's rock is the philosopher's stone. Is Quirrel just referring to Harry here?

No. It would be stupid for Dumbledore to hand out the philosopher's stone that way. It doesn't make it protected.

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 09:27:08AM 2 points [-]

Even assuming that all this is accurate, why would Quirrell give Harry a third-person description of Harry, framed as if he was describing a third party?

Apart from the standalone ridiculousness of such behaviour, if Quirrell believed that Harry already had the stone, and knew that Harry was willing to use the stone for his benefit, then this sort of obfuscation would be the last thing he'd do.

Comment author: BloodyShrimp 29 July 2014 03:40:01PM 1 point [-]

Unless Quirrell isn't interested in the stone primarily here, but in tricking Harry into doing something else trying to get the stone.

Comment author: Velorien 28 July 2014 07:56:21PM 5 points [-]

In the library Hermione told Harry that the spell is published but no one has been able to actually perform it (nominally due to difficulty). If they all think it does something other than what it actually does, that explains it and is consistent with the book's theory of magic.

This depends very much on how people conceptualise the philosopher's stone. If they go "by following these instructions, I will create a stone that produces the elixir of life and is also capable of permanently transmuting base metal into gold", and the philosopher's stone does not in fact do these things, then yes, they will fail.

On the other hand, if the wizard in question is aware that they have no idea how such an artefact is supposed to produce the elixir of life (or indeed what the elixir of life is beyond its expected function), or how it's supposed to transmute things, then their thought will surely be more like "by following these instructions, I will create an artefact that will deliver great benefits unto me, its possessor". Which ought to be sufficient to succeed if "for enemies" is.

If so, surely at least one of the many wizards to attempt the philosopher's stone ritual(?) must have been contemplating a sufficiently broad possibility space to succeed. And yet this does not appear to have been the case.

For further evidence, consider how frequently people learn and cast the Patronus Charm despite the fact that they are completely ignorant of how it really works.

Comment author: William_Quixote 28 July 2014 11:18:20PM 2 points [-]

Although people are ignorant of why it works, people casting the patronus charm know exactly what it does. It makes a silver colored animal that makes fear go away and can chase dementors.

As to conceptualization, you may well be right that it could be done without understanding the mechanism but with correct conceptualization. But, I bet most wizards don't have the right conceptualization. And worse, I bet most wizards investigating the philosophers stone have a Theory. And their theory is probably directly wrong which blocks them from being able to do it.

Comment author: cousin_it 28 July 2014 02:18:04PM *  10 points [-]

Any ideas on what the Philosopher's Stone does? My favorite idea so far, seen in the fanfiction.net reviews, is that it's a device for making transfiguration permanent. That would account for both gold and healing powers.

Comment author: [deleted] 26 August 2014 07:22:12PM -2 points [-]

However that wouldn't wrap up the story nicely in a single story arc.

It is a wish device. Probably a direct interface to the Source of Magic (itself an UFAI or Nanny AGI created by the Atlantian civilization and which underwent hard takeoff), bypassing the various operating systems, isolation layers, and programs that have been put in place on top of the Source of Magic over the years, e.g. the interdict of Merlin and whatever macro-extensible program runs charms & potions. The philosopher's stone directly links one's mind to the Source of Magic, thereby making whatever physically possible thing you think of come true. Kinda like the device in the book / movie Sphere, for example. It is said to create eternal youth and gold because that is what the creater of the stone wanted.

Harry aquires the stone, and uses it to re-write the rules governing the Source of Magic, becoming god in a single step and sets about "optimizing the world."

Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2014 01:59:27PM 2 points [-]

The burning sensation was back in Harry's throat. "No continuity of -" there wasn't a snake word for consciousness "- sself, you would go on thinking after making the horcrux, then sself with new memoriess diess and iss not resstored -"

That's an interesting reflection of our recent discussion about the value of the term consciousness (http://lesswrong.com/lw/ki1/confused_as_to_usefulness_of_consciousness_as_a/) and how some languages probably don't have it.

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 02:27:59PM *  0 points [-]

Yea, I was quite surprised to find that Quirrell believes in continuity of consciousness as being a fundamental problem, since it really is just an illusion to begin with (though you could argue the illusion itself is worthwhile). Surely you could just kill yourself the moment your horcrux does its job if you're worried about your other self living on? But maybe he doesn't know that scientifically there's no such thing as identity. Or maybe he's lying. Personally, I would be MUCH more concerned about the fact that the horcrux implants memories, but does not replace personality. But for some reason Quirrel does not mention that as the obvious drawback.

(I was also surprised that Eliezer seems to buy in the obviously false notion that "the opposite of love is indifference")

Comment author: drethelin 03 August 2014 07:25:21PM 0 points [-]

The continuity of consciousness is one thing but the horcrux doesn't even give continuity of KNOWLEDGE thanks to merlin

Comment author: Sophronius 03 August 2014 08:08:20PM *  0 points [-]

That's not an issue when it comes to acquiring immortality though. I mean, if you lost all knowledge of algebra, would you say that means you "died"?

Comment author: drethelin 03 August 2014 08:27:25PM 1 point [-]

Did you not read that section at all? If you lose all knowledge of powerful spellcasting, a) you lose your ability to continue to be immortal after this iteration, b) you lose your ability to defend yourself against enemies who haven't lost their ability to cast interdicted spells. The second one is really important when the process for immortality is one that inherently makes a lot of enemies! He specifically mentioned that dark wizards that tried use that technique to come back were easily defeated afterward.

Comment author: gwern 05 August 2014 04:51:46PM *  2 points [-]

Could that explain why Hat&Cloak seems to be a clever manipulator who works in utmost secrecy? (They really are weak, and survive only by hiding in the shadows.) We never see them indicated as using anything more complex than an Obliviate or disguise spell, AFAIK, which any reasonably competent adult wizard would be able to pull off.

Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 04:39:29PM -1 points [-]

This seems a big part of why I don't think Baba Yaga is still alive. The best in-story reason I can think of to consider the theory at all lies in the idea that (if Horcruxes are easier to make than I thought) some Dark figure of legend should still be alive. This argument seems weak if the spell doesn't give you much advantage. Also, Quirrell's claim here fits what we know about the Interdict. (I guess the question is whether the Horcrux spell falls under the Interdict!)

Comment author: Velorien 05 August 2014 05:02:45PM 1 point [-]

(I guess the question is whether the Horcrux spell falls under the Interdict!)

Chapter 39:

Voldemort stole the book from which he gleaned his secret; it was not there when I went to look for it.

Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 05:46:20PM -1 points [-]

Yes, but Dumbledore probably can't create an Horcrux. The Defense Professor claims the known description is wrong, which could make the theft a piece of misdirection. This is another possible way around the Interdict; publish a fake version of the spell which hints at the truth.

Comment author: Sophronius 05 August 2014 10:26:36AM 2 points [-]

That's irrelevant when you're considering whether or not to use the horcrux at all and the alternative is being dead.

Comment author: drethelin 05 August 2014 06:25:05PM 1 point [-]

If you're on your deathbed, sure. But Horcruxing is not costless. If you have a significant projected lifespan left, and you want ACTUAL immortality, your odds are probably better NOT doing a risky dark ritual that also encourages people to come and kill you.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 02 August 2014 11:31:20PM *  2 points [-]

the obviously false notion that "the opposite of love is indifference"

Perhaps the word "opposite" is not the best one, but I think it's about this: in some metric, loving people and hating people is closer to each other than either of them is to the paperclip maximizer's attitude towards humans. In HPMOR universe, a magical paperclip maximizer could shoot AK like a machine gun. Instead of replacing one emotion with another emotion, it's replacing one emotion with an absence of an emotion.

Instinctively, people sometimes prefer to be hated than to be ignored. For example, children trying to draw attention to themselves by behaving badly. There is some "recognition" in hate, that indifference lacks.

Comment author: [deleted] 03 August 2014 04:05:57PM 0 points [-]

Instinctively, people sometimes prefer to be hated than to be ignored. ... There is some "recognition" in hate, that indifference lacks.

Relevant.

Comment author: Velorien 03 August 2014 04:12:52PM *  1 point [-]

Please warn when you are linking to a post with an unmarked major spoiler for another novel (or two).

Comment author: ChristianKl 01 August 2014 02:50:31PM 3 points [-]

But maybe he doesn't know that scientifically there's no such thing as identity.

What do you mean with the term "scientifically" in that sentence? If I put identity into Google Scholar I'm fairly sure I fill find a bunch of papers in respectable scientific journals that use the term.

(I was also surprised that Eliezer seems to buy in the obviously false notion that "the opposite of love is indifference")

"Obviously" is a fairly strong word. It makes some sense to label the negation of any emotion a emotionless state. Unfriendly AI doesn't hate humans but is indifferent.

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 03:19:05PM 1 point [-]

What do you mean with the term "scientifically" in that sentence? If I put identity into Google Scholar I'm fairly sure I fill find a bunch of papers in respectable scientific journals that use the term.

I mean that if you have two carbon atoms floating around in the universe, and the next instance you swap their locations but keep everything else the same, there is no scientific way in which you could say that anything has changed.

Combine this with humans being just a collection of atoms, and you have no meaningful way to say that an identical copy of you is "not really you". Also, 'continuity of consciousness' is just a specific sensation that this specific clump of atoms has at each point in time, except for all the times when it does not exist because the clump is 'sleeping'. So Quirrel's objection seems to have no merit (could be I'm missing something though).

"Obviously" is a fairly strong word. It makes some sense to label the negation of any emotion a emotionless state. Unfriendly AI doesn't hate humans but is indifferent.

Yes, there is an insight to be had there, I will acknowledge that much.

However, to say that the opposite of a friendly AI is a paper clip maximiser is stupid. The opposite of an AI which wants to help you is very obviously an AI which wants to hurt you. Which is why the whole "AK version 2 riddle" just doesn't work. The Patronus goes from "not thinking about death" (version 1) to "Valuing life over death" (version 2). The killing curse goes from "valuing death over life" (version 1) to "not caring about life" (version 2). You can visualise the whole thing as a line measuring just the one integer, namely "life-death preference":

Value death over life (-1) ---- don't think about it either way (0) ----- Value life over death (+1)

The patronus gets a boost by moving from 0 to +1. The killing curse gets a boost by moving from -1 to 0. That makes no sense. Why would the killing curse, which is powered by the exact opposite of the patronus, receive a boost in power by moving in the same direct as the Patronus which values life over death?

Only fake wisdom can get ridiculous results like this.

Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 05:26:12PM -1 points [-]

Also, 'continuity of consciousness' is just a specific sensation that this specific clump of atoms has at each point in time

Or not. Memories are genuinely lost, if someone makes a Horcrux and then dies some years later. Moreover, according to the Defense Professor in snake form, the maker's personality could also change due to influence from the (two) victim(s). The result need not act like the maker at time of casting would act if placed in a new environment.

See also major's point.

Comment author: Nornagest 01 August 2014 10:39:10PM *  3 points [-]

The patronus gets a boost by moving from 0 to +1. The killing curse gets a boost by moving from -1 to 0. That makes no sense. Why would the killing curse, which is powered by the exact opposite of the patronus, receive a boost in power by moving in the same direct as the Patronus which values life over death?

I parsed it as follows: the Killing Curse isn't powered by death in the same way that the Patronus draws power from life, but it does require the caster not to value the life of an opponent. Hatred enables this, but it's limited: it has to be intense, sustained hatred, and probably only hatred of a certain kind, since it takes some doing for neurologically typical humans to hate someone enough to literally want them dead. Indifference to life works just as well and lacks the limitations, but that's probably an option generally available only to, shall we say, a certain unusual personality type.

Ideology might interact with this in interesting ways, though. I don't know whether Death Eaters would count as being motivated by hate or indifference by the standards of the spell; my model of J.K. Rowling says "hate", while my model of Eliezer says "indifference".

Comment author: Sophronius 03 August 2014 05:44:58AM 1 point [-]

Yes, that ideology is precisely what bothers me. Eliezer has a bone to pick with death so he declares death to be the ultimate enemy. Dementors now represent death instead of depression, patronus now uses life magic, and a spell that is based on hate is now based on emptiness. It's all twisted to make it fit the theme, and it feels forced. Especially when there's a riddle and the answer is 'Eliezer's password'.

Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 04:54:28PM -2 points [-]

I don't know if MoR influenced the movies, but Deathly Hallows 1 or 2 showed an image of Death looking like the movie's image of Dementors. It seems to me like a natural inference.

Comment author: Velorien 05 August 2014 05:08:08PM 1 point [-]

Isn't that because the only static element of a dementor's appearance is its black, concealing cloak, and that overlaps neatly with the Grim Reaper portrayal of death?

Comment author: hairyfigment 05 August 2014 05:49:19PM -1 points [-]

You say that like Rowling had no choice but to use this well-known image for Dementors. Also, they're supposed to look somewhat like corpses underneath.

Comment author: major 01 August 2014 10:28:46PM 2 points [-]

"don't think about it either way" does not necessarily mean indifference, it means reverting to default behaviour.

Humans are (mostly) pro-social animals with empathy and would not crush another human who just happens to be in their way - in that they differ from a falling rock. In fact, that's the point of hate, it overrides the built-in safeguards to allow for harmful action. According to this view, to genuinely not give a damn about someone's life is a step further. Obviously.

The thing about built-in default behaviour given by evolution is that it will not trigger in some cases.

Rationality and the English Language

"Unreliable elements were subjected to an alternative justice process"—subjected by who? What does an "alternative justice process" do? With enough static noun phrases, you can keep anything unpleasant from actually happening.

or HPMoR Ch.48

Your brain imagines a single bird struggling in an oil pond, and that image creates some amount of emotion that determines your willingness to pay. But no one can visualize even two thousand of anything, so the quantity just gets thrown straight out the window.

or HPMoR Ch.87

Because the way people are built, Hermione, the way people are built to feel inside [...] is that they hurt when they see their friends hurting. Someone inside their circle of concern, a member of their own tribe. That feeling has an off-switch, an off-switch labeled 'enemy' or 'foreigner' or sometimes just 'stranger'. That's how people are, if they don't learn otherwise.

My point with that is, it's completely in line with what Eliezer usually talks about, so you know it's a perspective he holds, not just rationalization.

For completeness' sake,

Not like certain people living in certain countries, who were, it was said, as human as anyone else; who were said to be sapient beings, worth more than any mere unicorn. But who nonetheless wouldn't be allowed to live in Muggle Britain. On that score, at least, no Muggle had the right to look a wizard in the eye. Magical Britain might discriminate against Muggleborns, but at least it allowed them inside so they could be spat upon in person.

still feels off. Oh, wait, I know! Maybe Harry is being Stupid here. Or Eliezer is being a Bad Writer. Again.

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 02:35:27PM 1 point [-]

(I was also surprised that Eliezer seems to buy in the obviously false notion that "the opposite of love is indifference")

Insofar as it is at all meaningful to consider feelings to have opposites, what would you present as the correct alternative?

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 02:59:51PM *  0 points [-]

It is a wrong question, because reality is never that simple and clear cut and no rationalist should expect it to be. And as with all wrong questions, the thing you should do to resolve the confusion is to take a step back and ask yourself what is actually happening in factual terms:

A more accurate way to describe emotion, much like personality, is in terms of multiple dimensions. One dimension is intensity of emotion. Another dimension is the type of experience it offers. Love and hate both have strong intensity and in that sense they are similar, but they are totally opposite in the way they make you feel. They are also totally opposite in terms of the effect it has on your preferences: Thinking well vs. thinking poorly of someone (ignoring the fact that there are multiple types of hate and love, and the 9999 other added complexities).

Ordinary people notice that hate and love are totally the opposite in several meaningful ways, and say as much. Then along comes a contrarian who wants to show how clever he is, and he picks up on the one way that love and hate are similar and which can make them go well together: The intensity of emotion towards someone or something. And so the contrarian states that really love and hate are the same and indifference is the opposite of both (somehow), which can cause people who aren't any good at mapping complex subjects along multiple axi in their head to throw out their useful heuristic and award status to the contrarian for his fake wisdom.

I'm a bit disappointed that Eliezer fell for the number one danger of rationalists everywhere: Too much eagerness to throw out common sense in favour of cleverness.

(Eliezer if you are reading this: You are awesome and HPMOR is awesome. Please keep writing it and don't get discouraged by this criticism)

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 03:53:43PM 3 points [-]

I'm surprised how strongly you're reacting to this, given that you seem to be aware that the whole "emotions having opposites" system is really just a word game anyway.

Why is it important that you prioritise the "effect on preferences" axis and Eliezer prioritises the "intensity" axis, except insofar as it is a bit embarrassing to see an intelligent person presenting one of these as wisdom? Perhaps Eliezer simply considers apathy to be a more dangerous affliction than hatred, and is thus trying to shift his readers' priorities accordingly. Insofar as there are far more people in the world moved to inaction through apathy than there are people moved to wrong action through hatred, perhaps there's something to that.

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 04:01:12PM *  1 point [-]

Hm, I didn't think I was reacting that strongly... If I was, it's probably because I am frustrated in general by people's inability to just take a step back and look at an issue for what it actually is, instead of superimposing their own favourite views on top of reality. I remember I recently got frustrated by some of the most rational people I know claiming that sun burn was caused by literal heat from the sun instead of UV light. Once they formed the hypothesis, they could only look at the issue through the 'eyes' of that view. And I see the same mistake made on Less Wrong all the time. I guess it's just frustrating to see EY do the same thing. I don't get why everyone, even practising rationalists, find this most elementary skill so hard to master.

Comment author: Lumifer 01 August 2014 04:28:00PM 1 point [-]

people's inability to just take a step back and look at an issue for what it actually is, instead of superimposing their own favourite views on top of reality.

I think that people who fully possess such a skill are usually described as "have achieved enlightenment" and, um, are rare :-) The skill doesn't look "elementary" to me.

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 04:49:07PM *  1 point [-]

Heheh, fair point. I guess a better way of putting it is that people fail to even bother to try this in the first place, or heck even acknowledge that this is important to begin with.

I cannot count the number of times I see someone try to answer a question by coming up with an explanation and then defending it, and utterly failing to graps that that's not how you answer a question. (In fact, I may be misremembering but I think you do this a lot, Lumifer.)

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 04:47:59PM 1 point [-]

I suppose "elementary" in the sense of "fundamental" or "simple" or "not relying on other skills before you can learn it", rather than in the sense of "easy" or "widespread".

Contrast literacy. Being to read and write one's own language is elementary. It can be grasped by a small child, and has no prerequisites other than vision, reasonable motor control and not having certain specific brain dysfunctions. Yet one does not have to cast one's mind that far back through history to reach the days in which this skill was reserved for an educated minority, and most people managed to live their whole lives without picking it up.

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 04:07:52PM 2 points [-]

Could you describe this skill in more detail please? If it is one I do not possess, I would like to learn.

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 04:35:36PM *  2 points [-]

Your attitude makes me happy, thank you. :)

It's the most basic rationalist skill there is, in my opinion, but for some reason it's not much talked about here. I call it "thinking like the universe" as opposed to "thinking like a human". It means you remove yourself from the picture, you forget all about your favourite views and you stop caring about the implications of your answer since those should not impact the truth of the matter, and describe the situation in purely factual terms. You don't follow any specific chain of logic towards finding an answer: You instead allow the answer to naturally flow from the facts.

It means you don't ask "which facts argue in favour of my view and which against?", but "what are the facts?"
It means you don't ask "What is my hypothesis?", you ask "which hypotheses flow naturally from the facts?"
It means you don't ask "What do I believe?" but "what would an intelligent person believe given these facts?"
It means you don't ask "which hypothesis do I believe is true?", but "how does the probability mass naturally divide itself over competing hypotheses based on the evidence?"
It means you don't ask "How can I test this hypothesis?" but "Which test would maximally distinguish between competing hypotheses?"
It means you never ever ask who has the "burden of proof".

And so on and so forth. I see it as the most fundamental skill because it allows you to ask the right questions, and if you start with the wrong question it really doesn't matter what you do with it afterwards.

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 04:57:32PM 1 point [-]

I think I understand now, thank you.

Do you follow any specific practices in order to internalise this approach, or do you simply endeavour to apply it whenever you remember?

Comment author: Sophronius 01 August 2014 05:27:26PM *  3 points [-]

The primary thing I seem to do is to remind myself to care about the right things. I am irrelevant. My emotions are irrelevant. Truth is not influenced by what I want to be true. I am frequently amazed by the degree with which my emotions are influenced by subconscious beliefs. For example I notice that the people who make me most angry when they're irrational are the ones I respect the most. People who get offended usually believe at some level that they are entitled to being offended. People who are bad at getting to the truth of a matter usually care more about how they feel than about what is actually true. (This is related to the fundamental optimization problem: The truth will always sound less truthful than the most truthful sounding falsehood.) Noticing that kind of thing is often more effective than trying to control emotions the hard way.

Secondly, you want to pay attention to your thoughts as much as possible. This is just meditation, really. If you become conscious of your thoughts, you gain a degree of control over them. Notice what you think, when you think it, and why. If a question makes you angry, don't just suppress the anger, ask yourself why.

For the rest it's just about cultivating a habit of asking the right questions. Never ask yourself what you think, since the universe doesn't care what you think. Instead say "Velorien believes X: How much does this increase the probability of X?".

Bertrand Russel gets it right, of course

Comment author: solipsist 28 July 2014 02:39:13AM 5 points [-]

"One thing," whispered Professor Quirrell. "One thing... that might do it... or it might not... but to obtain it... is beyond your power, or mine..."

Oh, it was just the setup for a subquest, said Harry's Inner Critic.

All the other parts screamed for that part to shut up. Life didn't work like that. Ancient artifacts could be found, but not in a month, not when you couldn't leave Hogwarts and were still in your first year.

Of course, that rule does not apply if the artifact was hidden by a man who thinks in story plots.

Chapter 12:

“Additionally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death. It is guarded by an elaborate series of dangerous and potentially lethal traps, and you cannot possibly get past all of them, especially if you are only in your first year."

Chapter 17:

“One last thing then, Harry. You are not to attempt the forbidden door on the third-floor corridor. There's no possible way you could get through all the traps, and I wouldn't want to hear that you'd been hurt trying. Why, I doubt that you could so much as open the first door, since it's locked and you don't know the spell Alohomora -”

Chapter 27:

“..meanwhile Dumbledore had happened to sneeze while passing them in the hallway, and a small package had accidentally dropped out of his pockets, and inside had been two matched wardbreaker's monocles of incredible quality. The Weasley twins had tested their new monocles on the "forbidden" third-floor corridor, making a quick trip to the magic mirror and back, and they hadn't been able to see all the detection webs clearly, but the monocles had shown a lot more than they'd seen the first time.

Of course they would have to be very careful never to get caught with the monocles in their possession, or they would end up in the Headmaster's office getting a stern lecture and maybe even threats of expulsion.

Comment author: cousin_it 28 July 2014 12:09:19AM *  4 points [-]

So here's an obvious way to fix all known problems of the horcrux spell. You need a variant that kills the caster and moves their ghost into the victim's body. To avoid personality conflicts, the victim should be a baby who doesn't have much of a personality yet. And since the spell doesn't use an intermediate item, knowledge is not lost. Sounds like what happened to baby Harry, right?

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 July 2014 05:29:04AM 2 points [-]

Almost. Harry still grew up as a baby/child, and not as a genius wizard.

The first horcrux was off of Lily's death burst, passing some personality traits of Quirrell into Harry. The next death burst will be Quirrell's, which will transfer his intelligence into Harry.

Quirrell casts his own death burst into Harry?

Comment author: solipsist 28 July 2014 12:03:52AM *  27 points [-]

I may be pointing out the obvious, but...

Professor Quirrell closed his eyes. His head leaned back into the pillow. "You were lucky," the Defense Professor said in a soft voice, "that a unicorn in Transfigured form... did not set off the Hogwarts wards, as a strange creature... I shall have to... take this outside the grounds, to make use of it... but that can be managed. I shall tell them that I wish to look upon the lake... I will ask you to sustain the Transfiguration before you go, and it should last long enough, after that... and with my last strength, dispel whatever death-alarms were placed to watch over the herd... which, the unicorn being not yet dead, but only Transfigured, will not yet have triggered... you were very lucky, Mr. Potter."

This is how the troll was smuggled into Hogwarts without the wards going off. In all likelihood, Quirrell had the transfigured troll on his person when Dumbledore identified to the Hogwarts wards "The Defense Professor stands within this circle". Trolls self-transfigure as a form of regeneration, so the transfiguration would not kill the troll or be detectable.

Comment author: solipsist 28 July 2014 12:58:55PM 3 points [-]

So, people did not think this was obvious?

Screw that. I am willing to bet $50 US (1:1) that Mr. Hat & Cloak is Baba Yaga.

Comment author: hairyfigment 29 July 2014 07:19:18AM 1 point [-]

I'll take that bet, if it's still open. Though please see the possible spoiler in my previous comment if you're basing this on your interpretation of Eliezer's motives.

Comment author: lmm 28 July 2014 07:57:57PM 4 points [-]

I'm interested in taking you up on this. Could you give a more explicit definition? How will the bet be resolved?

Comment author: solipsist 29 July 2014 02:14:05AM 3 points [-]

I'm not picky on definitions. "The entity Hermione called 'Mister Incredibly Suspicious Person' has Baba Yaga's memories." That definition is looser than it needs to be, but I'm giving you generous odds.

Resolution would be informal, with us PMing payment instructions to each other. The payment information I would send you would be cheap, non-sketchy, and anonymous for me. We might agree to call the bet off by February 28th 2014 if the bet is not resolved by then. If there's somehow a definitional dispute, we work it out, possibly with someone else on the forum arbitrating. Default option is to cancel the bet.

If I lose the bet I will laugh it off. You probably should not accept unless you would do the same.

Comment author: lmm 29 July 2014 06:57:27PM 3 points [-]

I think the most likely scenario is that we'll hear no more about either of them. So I want to win that case; if the two are unrelated then I doubt we'll hear anything explicit to that effect.

Rather than worry about what's "cheap" let's just say the loser pays $50 gross, any payment fees or the like can come out of the winnings. And I'll stipulate that anything bitcoiny qualifies as sketchy.

And yeah, $50 is an amount that I can comfortably toss for online entertainment without checking my bank balance.

Comment author: solipsist 29 July 2014 07:14:21PM 3 points [-]

How about this stipulation: if the name Baba Yaga does not appear in the book again, and Eliezer Yudkowsky does not Word of God that Mr. Hat & Cloak is Baba Yaga, you win. I'm expecting Baba Yaga to be important, and if she's not mentioned again or only mentioned offhandedly I will likely concede.

We are on the same page about payments.

Comment author: lmm 30 July 2014 07:26:17AM 9 points [-]

Sounds fair enough. So we have a bet?

Comment author: solipsist 04 December 2014 02:28:38AM 1 point [-]

The latest progress report suggests that chapters will resume in February, so the story might not finish until March. Extend the bet's expiration date to March 31st, 2015?

Comment author: lmm 04 December 2014 08:05:49AM 1 point [-]

Sure. Happy to push it out a bit longer actually, as I'm not confident there won't be further slippage; how about extending until June 30th?

Comment author: solipsist 04 December 2014 11:02:21AM 1 point [-]

Sure.

Comment author: solipsist 30 July 2014 11:11:58AM 9 points [-]

We have a bet. It's on!

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 February 2015 04:33:32PM 6 points [-]

By request, I declare solipsist to have lost this bet.

Comment author: Khoth 28 July 2014 06:30:58PM 2 points [-]

Why Baba Yaga?

Comment author: arundelo 29 July 2014 02:42:03AM 4 points [-]

She's mentioned in at least three chapters. In chapter 12 Quirrell describes her as the "quote undying unquote Baba Yaga". (To my knowledge she's not mentioned at all by Rowling.) The Law of Conservation of Detail tells us that she is going to be plot-relevant somehow.

Comment author: solipsist 29 July 2014 12:15:20PM 2 points [-]

I'll add "The Massacre of Albania in the Fifteenth Century", a book title which triggered my brain's foreshadowing alarm in chapter 26.

The "undying" Witch Formerly Known As Baba Yaga has gone by many names, including Nicholas Flamel.

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 09:39:52AM 5 points [-]

(To my knowledge she's not mentioned at all by Rowling.)

I can never see references to her without amusement. Bear in mind that the "canonical" Baba Yaga of Russian folklore is a cantankerous old witch who hobbles around with one leg made of bone, lives in a hut on chicken legs, and uses a giant mortar and pestle as her transport of choice. Such a character would make the likes of Hagrid and Moody seem wholly pedestrian.

Eliezer's re-imagining of her as a Dark Lady, meanwhile, just summons the most fantastic mental images.

Comment author: solipsist 29 July 2014 02:19:28AM *  4 points [-]

I've suspected Baba Yaga would be dramatically revealed since the sentence I read her name. Since then there's been no shortage of evidence which can be somehow contorted to confirm my theory.

Comment author: ikacer 04 August 2014 03:58:16PM 1 point [-]

I have some evidence opposing your theory.

EY has made a habit of throwing references to other fanfics in HPMOR. For example, David Monroe is a character in A Black Comedy. Baba Yaga appears in many fanfics, most famously in Turn Me Loose: A Harry Potter Adventure, where she is an immortal Dark Lady.

Comment author: gwern 28 July 2014 06:29:34PM 3 points [-]

How do you go from the old Quirrel troll-in-pocket theory to Hat & Cloak == Baba Yaga? And which Hat & Cloak?

Comment author: solipsist 28 July 2014 08:27:23PM *  2 points [-]

I updated on the probability that something could seem strikingly obvious on a first reading, escape the notice of hundreds of very smart people, have little direct evidence, and still be true.

I didn't realize that there were multiple Hat & Cloaks. I meant the ones that appeared to Blaize Zabini and to Hermione, if that limits them.

Comment author: Velorien 28 July 2014 01:10:46PM 6 points [-]

I would take you up on that, but in my memory palace one of the walls is occupied by a large chalkboard covered with lines of "I will not underestimate Eliezer Yudkowsky".

Comment author: Jurily 30 July 2014 01:53:49AM 1 point [-]

I'm not sure he'd needed to do that. Until we hear otherwise, he has access to all the knowledge of Salazar, who knew enough to build Hogwarts. Which also means the source code to the wards and the means to change them.

Can you even transfigure something that transfigures itself back? Of course Quirrell can do it if it's possible, but is it possible?

Comment author: Velorien 30 July 2014 10:33:03AM 1 point [-]

Until we hear otherwise, he has access to all the knowledge of Salazar, who knew enough to build Hogwarts.

This may be an exaggeration. First, it seems improbable that Salazar entrusted all his magical knowledge to the basilisk, if only because that would have been a ridiculous amount of magical knowledge. Salazar wouldn't have known which pieces of knowledge from his time were going to become lost, only that some would based on existing trends, so if he was going to tell the basilisk everything he thought valuable, it would have taken forever. Also, there's no reason to believe that basilisks have perfect memories - unless I'm misremembering, the basilisk as a species was chosen for its snakeness, deadliness and longevity rather than its intellect.

Which also means the source code to the wards and the means to change them.

Salazar was only responsible for part of Hogwarts. We don't know that he was at all responsible for the wards, only that he had admin access to them (in order to make them ignore the basilisk), which is no surprise since he was one of the four founders. We also don't know that Godric didn't revoke said admin access after Salazar betrayed him and left, in which case that portion of Salazar's knowledge would be useless. In fact, it would be downright weird if Godric hadn't done so.

Can you even transfigure something that transfigures itself back? Of course Quirrell can do it if it's possible, but is it possible?

Since I feel the wrathful shade of Professor McGonagall watching over my shoulder, I'm going to say "I don't know". But if I had to guess, a transfigured object takes on all the properties of its new form, including the property of "not having troll regenerative powers". So if you could initially transfigure the troll faster than its regeneration kicked in, you'd have no trouble maintaining it thereafter.

Comment author: 75th 01 August 2014 04:26:30AM *  3 points [-]

First, it seems improbable that Salazar entrusted all his magical knowledge to the basilisk, if only because that would have been a ridiculous amount of magical knowledge.

Well, it's not like he had to teach the Basilisk a full Hogwarts curriculum; he only had to teach it what he knew that triggered the Interdict of Merlin, which is only the top whateverth percentile of his repertoire.

Salazar wouldn't have known which pieces of knowledge from his time were going to become lost,

Sure he could have. All he had to do was write down the most powerful stuff he knew in descending order until he got to the point where someone else started understanding what they were reading.

Also, there's no reason to believe that basilisks have perfect memories

The Basilisk may not have a perfect memory as an animal, but it "would be huge flaw in sscheme" if Salazar's magical Parseltongue knowledge was corruptible by the limitations of any old snake's brain.

Salazar was only responsible for part of Hogwarts. We don't know that he was at all responsible for the wards, only that he had admin access to them…. We also don't know that Godric didn't revoke said admin access after Salazar betrayed him and left

I think you're extending your computer analogy too far. Salazar didn't have a revocable password to the wards, he knew the magic that created them, and the rest of the Founders certainly did not have the power to revoke spells from the Source of Magic.

Don't get me wrong, I think we're meant to understand that Quirrell did smuggle in the troll as a small transfigured object that Dumbledore drew his circle around. But nevertheless, I think we should also assume until further notice that h̶e̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶s̶ whoever got the basilisk's knowledge got the most powerful magic that Slytherin knew.

EDIT: Hedged my last sentence, since Chapter 102's horcrux information introduces potential ambiguity as to how Tom Riddle's knowledge has been propagated amongst his alter egos' bodies.

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 09:50:57AM 1 point [-]

Well, it's not like he had to teach the Basilisk a full Hogwarts curriculum; he only had to teach it what he knew that triggered the Interdict of Merlin, which is only the top whateverth percentile of his repertoire.

Fair point. I'd forgotten about the Interdict. With that said (and this applies to your second point as well), it seems unlikely that the Interdict of Merlin is the only reason for knowledge to be lost over time. For example, Riddle apparently found the horcrux ritual in a book, and that seems like powerful mostly-lost knowledge. Also, wizard society generally seems much worse at knowledge maximisation than muggle society. (side thought: is there even a single mention in either canon of wizard universities?)

The Basilisk may not have a perfect memory as an animal, but it "would be huge flaw in sscheme" if Salazar's magical Parseltongue knowledge was corruptible by the limitations of any old snake's brain.

True. One has to wonder, generally speaking, just how the whole thing worked, given that Parseltongue seems to blur terms for which it does not have an exact parallel ("schoolmaster", "hourglass to move through time"), and that seems like it would be a problem for advanced spell instructions.

I think you're extending your computer analogy too far. Salazar didn't have a revocable password to the wards, he knew the magic that created them, and the rest of the Founders certainly did not have the power to revoke spells from the Source of Magic.

We don't know that. The four founders came together to raise Hogwarts in the first place, suggesting that each of them knew only some of the magic necessary. There is no reason to believe that Salazar was the one who knew the magic for the Hogwarts wards, rather than, say, Rowena.

Additionally, you don't need to revoke a spell from the Source of Magic to prevent someone else making use of it. Going back to the computer analogy, being a system's original programmer doesn't mean you can automatically hack into any instance of that system. It is worth remembering that once Salazar left, it would have been three magical prodigies against one in the matter of establishing Hogwarts security.

Likewise don't get me wrong, I think it's reasonable to assume that whoever got the basilisk's knowledge got at least some very powerful magic from Slytherin; I just don't think we should overestimate how much that was.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 28 July 2014 07:22:04PM *  14 points [-]

This suggests that the troll was known to Hogwarts as "The Defense Professor", and so explains what the wards reported:

"... The wards of Hogwarts record that no foreign creature has entered, and that it was the Defense Professor who killed Hermione Granger."

Comment author: Benito 28 July 2014 10:22:48AM 1 point [-]

That is a nice theory.

Comment author: solipsist 28 July 2014 03:33:14AM *  1 point [-]

Speculative:

Quirrell couldn't have made the troll sun resistant, since Harry touched the troll and he can't touch Quirrell magic. Explanations include:

  1. Quirrell legilimensed (say) Professor Sprout to jinx the troll
  2. Hat & Cloak (who is not Quirrell) jinxed and redirected Quirrell's troll towards Hermione. Quirrell had ulterior motives for releasing the troll (e.g. as a distraction so Snape could pull Philosopher stone mischief).
Comment author: ChristianKl 28 July 2014 02:00:51PM 2 points [-]

Alternatively there are some magic portions that can be used to make the troll sun resistant.

Comment author: JTHM 27 July 2014 04:51:51PM 4 points [-]

Harry seems to have neglected the possibility that the Philosopher's Stone is a general-purpose transmutation device, thus explaining why it would be able to produce both gold and the elixir of life.

And since Fullmetal Alchemist was plagiarized from wizard lore, you'd think this would be a reasonably common hypothesis.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 27 July 2014 12:48:44PM 3 points [-]

This problem could be fixed, in principle:

Merlin'ss Interdict preventss powerful sspells from passing through ssuch a device, ssince it iss not truly alive. Dark Wizardss who think to return thuss are weaker, eassily disspatched.

You need two cooperating Dark Wizards. (I know, much easier said than done.) They share knowledge of all spells. One of them makes a horcrux, the other teaches him all the spells again. Then the other makes a horcrux, and the former teaches him.

Or maybe you just need one Dark Wizard, and one loyal servant, willing to make the Unbreakable Vow. Servant makes a vow to teach the reborn Dark Wizard all his spells, but never use them for himself or tell them to anyone else.

Comment author: Velorien 29 July 2014 12:53:18PM 3 points [-]

Or maybe you just need one Dark Wizard, and one loyal servant, willing to make the Unbreakable Vow. Servant makes a vow to teach the reborn Dark Wizard all his spells, but never use them for himself or tell them to anyone else.

Bellatrix?

Comment author: buybuydandavis 28 July 2014 05:21:47AM *  2 points [-]

Or Quirrell focuses Quirrell's death burst into Harry?

Harry think's he's gaining knowledge, but it's actually Quirrell uploading into Harry and taking over.