Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116

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 116.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

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 116.

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Yudkowsky which is not supposed to be publicly available (which includes public statements by Eliezer that have been retracted).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

Interesting hypothesis... but if the wards didn't identify Harry as the "Defense Professor", and identified the troll as "Defense Professor". So I guess the wards identify the bodies more than the "spirit" inhabiting them, which means they won't recognize Voldemort now that he left Quirrel's body to his original snake-like body.

I guess the only other evidence we have is that the Map, using the wards, would (implicitly) alternate between showing him as QQ and TR depending on whether QQ was being actively possessed, but as far as we know reported relatively consistently on the presence of the Defense Professor, such that it was a surprise to Dumbledore that the wards reported him being the troll. We do know that the wards are able to remain aware of identity even through transfiguration, as shown with both the troll and the unicorn.

It seems like that's about as consistent with the ... (read more)

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116

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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 116

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