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hairyfigment comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, July 2014, chapter 102 - Less Wrong Discussion

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

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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: AnthonyC 02 February 2015 11:00:42PM *  0 points [-]

"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)."

I'm not so sure. Harry has observed that magic should b e arbitraarily powerful, and was presumably invented to have the rules it does. Rot13 because of spoilers in a story EY referenced in author's notes, Ra: Jr nyfb xabj gung RL ernq dagz.bet/en orsber Whyl 2014, fb znlor ur jnf vafcverq ol gur angher bs zntvp va gung fgbel: 1) gung bevtvanyyl vg nafjrerq qverpg erdhrfgf, "Qb jung V zrna" nsgre fvzhyngvat shgher jbeyq fgngrf gb frr jung fngvfsvrf zl gehr, abg fgngrq, qrfverf, 2) gung guvf yrq gb qvfnfgre naq gur qrfgehpgvba bs gubhfnaqf bs vaunovgrq cynargf, 3) gung gur fheivibef perngrq neovgenel ehyrf gb erfgevpg hfr bs zntvp, naq 4) gung gur fheivibef gurzfryirf cerfreirq n zrnaf gb pvephzirag gubfr yvzvgngvbaf.

Comment author: gjm 03 February 2015 12:58:56AM 0 points [-]

Naq (5) gung #4 cebirq gb or n fgnttrevatyl onq vqrn.

Comment author: hairyfigment 03 February 2015 08:08:45PM -1 points [-]

Can't tell without reading spoilers: are you giving an argument against Harry changing the rules?

Comment author: Velorien 31 July 2014 09:51:22AM 0 points [-]

I 'm not entirely sure what kind of bet you're proposing; I definitely did not mean to propose one.

Having reviewed the Elder Wand information from canon, I concur that using it to empower Reparo is plausible. But I don't see how "some way of getting it is perfectly normal" can describe the use of a unique artefact famed for its unmatched power. It is notable that Harry's reductionist powers so far (Patronus 2.0 and partial transfiguration) have relied solely on his mind, rather than on any MacGuffin. It would seem like a downward turn in story quality for that pattern to be broken now.

If your assumption about the use of the Resurrection Stone is correct, then yes, the rest works too. I guess that comes down to whether Harry has unconscious memories of being Voldemort, and whether such unconscious memories qualify for being used by the Stone.

Comment author: hairyfigment 31 July 2014 04:43:45PM 0 points [-]

That's certainly the weakest point in my argument. So - as you're making a purely Doylist claim rather than giving a reason why it wouldn't work - why do you think Eliezer bothered to include the Deathly Hallows, integrating them earlier and more fully into the story? Why did MoR!Harry hear what seems like a prophecy about them? Why does he use his understanding of the Cloak to solve a difficult problem, one touching on the thought behind his Patronus? On a related note, the Patronus 2.0 requires values in addition to reductionism (plus a magic wand), and your category seems highly artificial to me.

Comment author: Velorien 01 August 2014 09:28:15AM 0 points [-]

I think you and I are operating on different models of intellectual discussion. According to my model, expressing scepticism of someone's theory does not automatically compel me to enter in some sort of gambling arrangement, nor does it force me to present a theory of my own that answers the same question better.

This is not a contest. You have put forth a theory. I am helping you refine and/or test that theory by pointing out its weaknesses, while at the same time making use of its strengths to enhance my own understanding of HPMOR. I do not need to offer an alternative hypothesis to do any of this.

It's not a bad theory either. My criticism largely comes down to the fact that it relies on stacking weak evidence (e.g. speculation about as-yet unrevealed spell and artefact mechanics, Doylist arguments with very varied strength, and that Hermione's body thing you have yet to justify) and therefore there is a hard limit to how far I would be prepared to believe it even if it were the best theory out there.

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