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shminux comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 118 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Since HP erased all or nearly all LV/QQ's memories, how is it different from actually killing him?
It doesn't activate his horcrux network.
Memories don't include skills. Voldemort still knows all of his spells.
It's a question I've wondered about myself.
Obliviation makes a big difference in terms of the horcrux network, but I'm not sure what difference it makes in terms of Harry's reluctance to kill humans.
If we assume that our future selves want all of us around because we're cute-- that is, delightful and harmless, will they want both Voldemort and Quirrell? Is it clear that Quirrell was Voldemort all the time?
Would they want to give all our past selves (say, a sample of each of us from every major psychological change) to be given a chance to grow and develop?
Will they be willing to kill each other in extreme circumstances because they won't be harmless relative to each other?
Thank you. Yes, my question was about the moral difference, not the technical one, as other replies seem to interpret it. I understand that Harry had to have precautions in case his transfiguration fails at some point, but still, he destroyed the identity of his mentor without an immediate need to do so. He could have delayed irreversible actions until he has time to reflect. Rather un-Harry-like at this point in the story. Unless I'm missing something.
Harry deleted (or tried to delete, we don't know he succeeded) LV/QQ's episodic memory, not his procedural memory (skills and spells). In principle, this could be fixed - in canon memory charms could sometimes be reversed, and in HPMOR most of LV's memories are backed up by the horcrux network. Sufficiently advanced magic might be able to extract those.
Unfortunately, deleting episodic memory while leaving procedural memory intact would mean that Voldemort would no longer remember the things he's able to do.
He might, however, learn his old skills a lot faster than he otherwise would have.
Addressed to everyone, not just AnthonyC: if your episodic memory were deleted and your procedural memory remained (and you could look at it from the outside), to what extent would you consider yourself to still exist?
Approximately the same extent to which I'd consider myself to exist in the event of any other form of information-theoretic death. Like, say, getting repeatedly shot in the head with a high powered rifle, or having my brain dissolved in acid.
Right. This is why I said that total obliviation is worse than death. Not only are you removed, you can later be used to support purposes outright opposed to your goals, as Harry intends to do with Voldemort.
This seems odd to me, though I'm not saying you're wrong. From the inside, my values seem far more akin to habits or reflexes than to time-indexed memories.
I imagine Obliviated!me still having a NO DON'T reaction when asked to support a purpose opposed to my previous goals, because verbalised goals flow from wordless moral habits; not the other way around. (assuming a possibly inconsistent scenario where I retain enough language for someone to expect to manipulate me)
Since Voldemort's goal set was extremely self-centered, I'm not sure results in a universe where he no longer exists can be stated to opposed to his goals in any meaningful way. They simply don't concern him.
Quite a bit. I have a very bad memory for personal history anyway - I have a vague timeline of significant dates in my head, and a handful of random "vivid" memories, maybe one per year, that have been nailed down by neural happenstance. But if you asked me what I was doing yesterday evening, I think I would end up randomly selecting an evening from the last three or so - unless I painstakingly solved it in the manner of a logic puzzle ("I go to the gym on Wednesdays, and yesterday was Thursday, so I guess I was at the gym").
It's close to the same thing, yes.
(Unless we count the horcrux backups, but since Harry doesn't mean for them to come into play, they don't count in this moral calculus.)
I am okay with that.
An aside: a couple replies to you mention "horcrux backups", but that's Horcrux 1.0, the kind that Voldemort disdains for their failure to preserve continuity of identity. I get the impression that Horcrux 2.0 is more like RAID, but RAID is not backup. It's quite likely that now there are no backups and this was indeed a partial death.
Actually killing him (including his horcrux backup system, I assume?) would obliterate the LV-that-is and any possible LV-that-could-be. Harry obliterated the LV-that-is, but can still restore him to full health and allow him to become any one of the LV-that-could-be.
It’s a bit like taking a life but starting a new life, too.