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My guess is one possible aversion is 'have the protagonist be mind-altered so the obvious clues don't add up', which is one of the leading theories for 'why hasn't Harry figured out yet that Quirrel is Voldemort even though people were figuring that out by like ch20?'
Well, part of it is that Quirrel is Voldemort in canon, which is significant evidence that Harry doesn't have.
I don't think it's a good idea to do a formal memorization of something that's not based on any kind of scientific research.
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Rationality Quotes September 2013
There is no glory, no beauty in death. Only loss. It does not have meaning. I will never see my loved ones again. They are permanently lost to the void. If this is the natural order of things, then I reject that order. I burn here my hopelessness, I burn here my constraints. By my hand, death shall fall. And if I fail, another shall take my place ... and another, and another, until this wound in the world is healed at last.
Anonymous, found written in the Temple at 2013 Burning Man
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Rationality Quotes September 2013
"To know thoroughly what has caused a man to say something is to understand the significance of what he has said in its very deepest sense." -Willard F. Day
On the other hand, one should consider not only what was said, but also what should have been said.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
Here's a miserable plot possibility. Hermione was concealed, something went wrong, and the feeling of her mind going past was because a number of other things happened, and the concealed Hermione was killed.
Neutral plot possibility: usually, dying minds aren't felt in the wizarding world. Something unusual was going on, and I don't know what it was.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
Neutral plot possibility: usually, dying minds aren't felt in the wizarding world. Something unusual was going on, and I don't know what it was.
This seems unlikely. There was a mention about ghosts being caused by "the burst of magic that accompanied the violent death of a wizard" (or something along those lines -- I don't feel like looking up the exact quote right now.)
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
Well, in the spirit of sticking your neck out:
Harry was sorted into Slytherin.
Dumbledore created Harry to be the ideal literary hero.
Lord Voldemort doesn't want to conquer the world.
Dumbledore is working on way more advance information than everyone else.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
Counter-evidence: Harry produces blue and bronze sparks at Ollivander's.
As long as we're sticking necks out, though:
Definitely: The horcrux technology uses the ghost phenomenon. Specifically, by causing the violent death of a wizard under controlled conditions (i.e., murder) it's possible to harness the powerful burst of magic to make a ghost of the living caster instead of of the dying victim: a backup copy. A ghost may be static data rather than a running instance, but hey, so is a cryo patient.
Definitely: Baby Harry was overwritten with a horcrux-backup-copy of Voldemort. Voldemort didn't plan on childhood amnesia, though, and much of the information was erased (or at least made harder to access consciously). The Remembrall-like-the-Sun indicated the forgotten lifetime as Riddle. Remnants of Voldemort's memories are the reason Harrymort has a cold side; his upbringing in a loving family is the reason he has a warm side.
Mere hunch: In chapter 45, the Dementor recognized Harry as Voldemort and addressed him by name: "Riddle".
Mere hunch: Voldemort may have chosen to impress his horcrux in a living human in order to try to get around the "static data" problem. If it had worked, he would have forked himself -- there would have been two fully functional running instances of Voldemort, all the time, plus twelve hours a day worth of Time-copies.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
The soul releasing seems easy enough to fake, as does Hermione's comment to the Patronus. Hermione being under an invisibiliy cloak near fake-Hermione would do for the Patronus taking Harry to her(though screaming mid-combat would be quite dangerous, even invisible).
The hardest part would be creating a fake Hermione sufficiently well to convince both the troll and Harry. Do we know of any magic sufficient to that task? Copying the form can be done, as was done with the Azkaban breakout, but the blood and the talking both seem outside the capabilities of that spell.
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 19, chapter 88-89
It's not obvious to me how to fake the soul releasing. It was perceived by the magic-sense, not just with the muggle senses.
I know how Eliezer is using the word "insane."
Just because $CELEBRITY uses it that way doesn't make it right. This usage is conflating two usefully distinct concepts.
Of course "never" is testable. The way to falsify is to exhibit a counterexample. "Human beings will never design a heavier than air flying machine" (Lord Kelvin, 1895), "a computer will never beat the human world champion in chess," etc. All falsified, therefore, all testable. If anything, an infinite horizon statement like "never" is more vulnerable to falsification, and therefore should get more "scientific respect."
It's only testable in one direction -- if you like, "never" is testable but "ever" isn't. I don't have a formal argument to hand, but it seems vaguely to me that a hypothesis preferably-ought to be falsifiable both ways.
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Considering that an alicorn is a unicorn's horn, I think mine is a fairly girly username. Unless there is a unicorn-loving male element I should be aware of.
Wacky theory: it sounds masculine because it ends in a consonant.