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TsviBT comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapters 105-107 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: b_sen 17 February 2015 01:17AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 17 February 2015 03:12:40AM *  9 points [-]

Observations:

  1. Quirrell does not say what the Stone really does. Harry does, in normal speech. (Presumably Parseltongue only prevents willful lies.)
  2. "Anyone else in Hogwarts" is pretty weak, especially since Dumbledore is presumably absent, and most of the people are at the Quidditch match (where is Sprout leading the others?). Especially as Quirrell interprets Hogwarts as "castle" in Parseltongue, and "unlesss I musst" is a pretty wide exemption.

Speculation:

  1. Harry will not be saved by the power of love. (80%?)
  2. Everyone involved in the deal gets 'what they want'--that is, cooperation on the Prisoner's Dilemma with a rational agent who (somewhat) shares your source code is rational, especially when defect-defect is miserable (presumably, both of them dead). (60%?)
  3. Hermione is revived (90%?) and is an Alicorn Princess (20%?).
Comment author: TsviBT 17 February 2015 12:41:12PM 4 points [-]

(Presumably Parseltongue only prevents willful lies.)

Quirrell also claims (not in Parseltongue):

Occlumency cannot fool the Parselmouth curse as it can fool Veritaserum, and you may put that to the trial also.

It seems like what you can say in Parseltongue should only depend on the actual truth and on your mental state. What happens if I Confundus / Memory Charm someone into believing X? Can they say X in Parseltongue? If they can say it just because they believe it, then Parseltongue is not so hard to bypass; I just Confundus myself (or get someone to do it for me), tell the lie, and then cancel the Confundus. If they can't say something because it is actually false, then Parseltongue is an instant win condition. You just use binary search to figure out the truth about anything.

Or maybe Parseltongue checks the speaker for mind magic, since this is the same principle as the Dark Mark, and Salazar is not too many levels below Voldemort. Is this evidence against the "Harry was Confounded to not realize Quirrell was Voldemort" theory? I don't remember if he talked about that in Parseltongue...

Comment author: linkhyrule5 17 February 2015 02:21:47PM 10 points [-]

If Parseltongue depended only on the actual truth of the world, Voldemort would have won already, because you can then pull single bits of arbitrary information out of the aether one at a time.

Comment author: Izeinwinter 17 February 2015 04:20:25PM 4 points [-]

It was designed by Salazar to help his heirs cooperate - Presumably, all the obvious ways to fuck with it are well and truly walled off, because he'd expect a bunch of them to be morons about this and try to light the awesome gift horse of a working trust engine on fire. Also presumably, it isn't an universal oracle, the world not being currently ruled by Salazar Slytherin the God-King. At a guess, it either keeps a log of your life separate from your memory, or the ability to speak parseltounge depends on an intact mind, and the only thing you are able to say in parseltounge if you do memory charms on yourself is "I'm a moron who thinks obliviate is a toy".

Comment author: ChristianKl 17 February 2015 04:24:29PM 5 points [-]

It was designed by Salazar to help his heirs cooperate

That's the story Quirrell tells Harry.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 17 February 2015 03:02:21PM *  -1 points [-]

But then Harry could simply start saying, "The ssecret to vanquishh deathh iss..." and his entire mission would be over.

Comment author: gjm 19 February 2015 07:39:51PM 7 points [-]

"... not known to me yet."

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