Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 114 + chapter 115

Gondolinian

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 114, and also, as a special case due to the exceptionally close posting times, chapter 115.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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.

Please don't change it. It's more than awesome enough as it is. Even if I did expect partial transfiguration to have some role, using the wand itself as raw material was tremendously surprising. For many people it will look too easy, but only with the benefit of hindsight.

Edited to add: some previous chapter should be modified to establish that transfiguration is indeed wordless.

Edited to add: I'm stupid. Chapter 15 says it is.

For many people it will look too easy, but only with the benefit of hindsight.

Only with the benefit of hindsight? I bet 3 people that the solution won't involve PT, 2 of them within hour(s) of chapter 113 coming out, as it was the most obvious (while impausible for some) solution for many people. Specifically transfiguring the tip of wand/leg/earth/air into nanowires was mentioned by so many people within minutes of posting the chapter.. There was no hindsight involved.