= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
paper-machine comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 113 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
Comments (503)
That is very unlikely.
Why?
He's a competent antagonist.
He is. But assuming that he is super-prepared, beyond the abilities and equipment we've seen or been given reason to postulate, results in an unsolvable puzzle. Someone as intelligent, experienced, prepared and resourceful as Voldemort could theoretically have a counter for anything we can come up with.
We know or can reasonably assume that he obtained a gun specifically as a solution to the problem of not being able to injure or kill Harry with magic. We don't have any reason to believe that he has prepared further, backup solutions to that specific problem.
There's one thing for which it's genuinely impossible for V to have a counter: the realization that killing Harry is not in his interests. Speaking in Parseltongue, bound by the Vow, Harry is uniquely prepared to make that case -- assuming it's true.
Well, that's the sticking point. Parseltongue and the Vow prove that Harry is honest. They don't prove that he's right, and Voldemort can simply choose to dismiss any of Harry's arguments as insufficient (which isn't that hard, given that the risk of keeping him alive is the end of the world, and any risk incurred by killing him is probably going to be less bad).
http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/lsp/harry_potter_and_the_methods_of_rationality/c22c