Comment author: ciphergoth 16 March 2015 12:31:46PM 2 points [-]

I definitely find that I can handle more of what life throws at me when I've brushed my hair.

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 March 2015 07:01:37PM 2 points [-]

I agree, brushing makes it harder for stuff to get caught in my hair when it gets thrown at me.

Comment author: n4r9 15 March 2015 11:30:05AM 0 points [-]

To clarify: do you believe that there is something ontological in the system which is assigning probabilities of measurement outcomes in some way, when you make a measurement of the obervable O?

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 March 2015 09:49:07AM 0 points [-]

Probabilities aren't ontological; they're epistemological. I agree with everything that Eliezer writes about that, probabilities are in the map, etc.

But remove that word; there is something ontological that assigns measurement outcomes when I make a measurement. Or to keep it simpler: when I make a measurement, the measurement outcome is ontological.

Comment author: CellBioGuy 16 March 2015 07:10:14AM *  5 points [-]

As Harry's pet?

EDIT To head off the inevitable need to clarify myself, I clarify now: This refers entirely to Hermione's current status as the not-in-the-know smiling gofer being handed her role by the ever so wise 11-year-old savior and master of the fate of the universe who is of course the only person who could ever guide the whole fricking world in such a way that it won't be destroyed and tell her what she should be because reasons. And of course she just takes it. I interpreted this not as sexism but as the exaltation of Harry over all others who are of course less than sane/rational/special/human/important/worthy/cosmically-significant for basically no reason other than Time Says So. And everyone just goes along with it. That whole aspect of this whole chapter (and the last several) made me cringe. For multiple reasons.

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 March 2015 09:27:17AM 2 points [-]

But at the same time, Harry tries several times to give Hermione her own agency and not reduce her to this role. Or at least he says that he's trying to do that. He's not very good at it yet.

Comment author: dxu 16 March 2015 05:22:36AM *  -1 points [-]

I wasn't really concerned with his points against the story, and his points against the story's didactic purposes felt weak at best. What I found most pertinent in his critiques were the points about HPMoR's science. I'm no physicist, but from what I could tell, most of it seemed pretty sound (though the thing about the levitation vs. cat transformation in Chapter 1 was, I felt, pretty lazy reading). Any domain experts around here that could chime in, specifically on the physics?

EDIT: Poor wording in the above paragraph. What I meant was that the guy's critiques seem pretty sound, not that the science in HPMoR seems pretty sound.

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 March 2015 09:25:33AM 5 points [-]

Sure, the problems with the physics are right in there with bothersome things that Harry says that you could still justify, starting with the non sequiturs about conservation of energy when McGonogall turns into a cat.

I disagree with su3su2u1 (the tumblr author) about levitation; that doesn't violate conservation of energy if it's mediated by a force, and why shouldn't it be? On the other hand, turning into a cat violates conservation of mass (or would appear to, and that should be easy to check with a bathroom scale), which (via E = mc²) translates into a huge energy violation. But bringing up the quantum Hamiltonian? FTL signalling? Su3su2u1's analysis is correct.

The justification for this is that Harry is 11 and has only a vague idea about how physics actually works. But then it's hard to tell what we should learn from Harry and what we should ignore. (For that matter, I don't even know if Eliezer knows better than Harry or not.)

Comment author: dxu 15 March 2015 07:51:21PM *  13 points [-]

Well, I was browsing /r/hpmor, and this guy's blog turned up.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Downvotes? Someone mind telling me if I did something wrong here? Or is just that people don't like the dude's blog?

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 March 2015 05:18:31AM 1 point [-]

I like the name ‘Hariezer’.

There are a lot of things about Hariezer in the early chapters that enrage this guy and that also slightly bothered me. Many of them end up justified later, some much later when we learn that Harry was overwritten by Tom Riddle while a baby (not made into a Horcrux). It's not just that Hariezer has flaws, but that he has them for a reason. (The parallel with Eliezer's April Fools story are striking.)

I think that this guy has a fair point, however: that Hariezer's flaws can interfere with the pedagogical purposes of HPMOR.

Comment author: kilobug 15 March 2015 11:21:27AM 2 points [-]

I don't really see the point in antimatter suiciding. It'll not kill Voldermort due to the Horcrux network, so it'll just kill the Death Eaters but letting Voldemort in power, and Voldemort would be so pissed of he would do the worst he can to Harry's family and friends... how is that any better than letting Voldemort kill Harry and manage to save a couple of people by telling him a few secrets ?

Comment author: TobyBartels 16 March 2015 04:09:17AM 0 points [-]

The longer explanation said that it was bungled, that the antimatter blew before the transfiguration was finished.

Comment author: falenas108 14 March 2015 09:20:35PM 2 points [-]

There was one part where they were talking about what would happen if Harry were not raised by scientists, and EY basically describes canon.

Comment author: TobyBartels 15 March 2015 04:51:34AM 2 points [-]

But it only matches canon halfway. They're describing Harry raised by James and Lily, not by the Dursleys. They suggest that Harry and Hermione won't be friends, although later suggest that they'll at least be allies. And … another difference, I'd have to look.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 14 March 2015 12:31:32AM 4 points [-]

This sentence just clunked for me:

There was so much to do, so many things, that even Headmistress McGonagall didn't seem to know where to start, and certainly not Harry.

"and certainly not with Harry", with Harry as the object of McGonagall's starting, or "and neither did Harry", as in "Harry didn't know where to start either"?

Comment author: TobyBartels 15 March 2015 04:17:57AM 0 points [-]

I agree with the second, but I read it as ‘and Harry certainly did not’, which makes the actual phrasing seem slightly more justifiable than it otherwise would seem.

Comment author: TrE 14 March 2015 04:56:55AM 6 points [-]

Although honestly, what kind of idiot had the idea to order the date mm/dd/yyyy?

Comment author: TobyBartels 15 March 2015 04:12:29AM 2 points [-]

This order (including the m/dd/yy abbreviation) was wisely chosen so that Super Pi Day would actually happen once a century. Without that reason, it's completely illogical, so there is no other possible explanation.

Comment author: Sheaman3773 15 March 2015 12:58:40AM 0 points [-]

Ah. Even ignoring that the context is from when they are children, I don't consider the black sheep disowned from the family as having a bearing on where the House stands, but alright. Semantics, I suppose.

Comment author: TobyBartels 15 March 2015 04:06:43AM 0 points [-]

As I said, it's a minor detail.

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