All of matheist's Comments + Replies

matheist200

When will Harry tell Hermione the truth? I feel like he should insist she learn occlumency first.

Harry can just claim to have already used it that day for an innocuous purpose, like studying or something. Sure, McGonagall could accuse him of stupidity because that leaves him unprepared for an emergency, but pleading guilty to stupidity is easy. (Well, easier, anyway.)

matheist130

Don't be too hasty, whatever you end up deciding! It's only been a day. A lot of people put a lot of thought into solving this problem, and it makes sense that their attitudes about whether the problem was too easy, or too hard, or whether they solved guessed the author's solution, or whether it's unrealistic, would be emotionally enhanced by the effort they spent.

Take a week, take a month, talk to people you trust.

matheist190

I'm a postdoc in differential geometry, working in pure math (not applied). The word "engineering" in a title of a forum would turn me away and lead me to suspect that the contents were far from my area of expertise. I suspect (low confidence) that many other mathematicians (in non-applied fields) would feel the same way.

There's also the problem of actually building such a thing.

edit: I should add, the problem of building this particular thing is above and beyond the already difficult problem of building any AGI, let alone a friendly one: how do you make a thing's utility function correspond to the world and not to its perceptions? All it has immediately available to it is perception.

Let me try to strengthen my objection.

Xia: But the 0, 0, 0, ... is enough! You've now conceded a case where an endless null output seems very likely, from the perspective of a Solomonoff inductor. Surely at least some cases of death can be treated the same way, as more complicated series that zero in on a null output and then yield a null output.

Rob: There's no reason to expect AIXI's whole series of experiences, up to the moment it jumps off a cliff, to look anything like 12, 10, 8, 6, 4. By the time AIXI gets to the cliff, its past observations and rew

... (read more)

It's really great to see all of these objections addressed in one place. I would have loved to be able to read something like this right after learning about AIXI for the first time.

I'm convinced by most of the answers to Xia's objections. A quick question:

Yes... but I also think I'm like those other brains. AIXI doesn't. In fact, since the whole agent AIXI isn't in AIXI's hypothesis space — and the whole agent AIXItl isn't in AIXItl's hypothesis space — even if two physically identical AIXI-type agents ran into each other, they could never fully underst

... (read more)
6cromulented
If you're suggesting this as a way around AIXI's immortality delusion, I don't think it works. AIXI "A" doesn't learn of death even if it witnesses the destruction of its twin, "B", because the destruction of B does not cause A's input stream to terminate. It's just a new input, no different in kind than any other. If you're considering AIXI(tl) twins instead, there's also the problem that an full model of an AIXI(tl) can't fit into its own hypothesis space, and thus a duplicate can't either. AIXI doesn't just believe it's Cartesian. It's structurally unable to believe otherwise. That may not be true of humans.
4Kaj_Sotala
Agreed. While reading this, I kept having the experience of "hmm, Xia's objection sounds quite reasonable, now that I think of it... but let's see what Rob says... oh, right".

Agreed about Eliezer thinking similar thoughts. At least, he's thinking thoughts which seem to me to be similar to those in this post. See Building Phenomenological Bridges (article by Robby based on Eliezer's facebook discussion).

That article discusses (among other things) how an AI should form hypotheses about the world it inhabits, given its sense perceptions. The idea "consider all and only those worlds which are consistent with an observer having such-and-such perceptions, and then choose among those based on other considerations" is, I think, common to both these posts.

(I haven't seen the LW co-working chat)

If you want to tell people off for being sexist, your speech is just as free as theirs. People are free to be dicks, and you're free to call them out on it and shame them for it if you want.

I think you should absolutely call it out, negative reactions be damned, but I also agree with NancyLebovitz that you may get more traction out of "what you said is sexist" as opposed to "you are sexist".

To say nothing is just as much an active choice as to say something. Decide what kind of environment you want to help create.

4kalium
A norm of "don't be a dick" isn't inherently a violation of free speech. The question is, does LW co-working chat have a norm of not being a dick? Would being a dick likely lead to unfavorable reactions, or would objecting to dickish behavior be frowned on instead?

Umm........ but caffeine is also addictive. This seems like a flaw in the plan.

3AlexSchell

Are you saying you believe this theory? (What's the evidence?) Or merely that I'm disbelieving it too quickly?

3drethelin
I think you're disbelieving it for the wrong reasons. The biggest problem and one which Mugasofer mentions in his comment is that there's no set up system or reason for Quirrel to be remote controlling his body. Horcruxes don't really work like that in Canon, and it also doesn't match what we see: eg Quirrel doesn't take hours to respond to every single thing. It's possible zombie-mode is some sort of "cloud uploading" process by which he sends memories to his Horcruxes but it doesn't really seem like that would be affected by this sort of thing. I think it's more likely that Pioneer is just a badass way to make a Horcrux and that zombie-mode is a consequence of something else, probably his mind-control battle with Quirrel or whoever Quirrel used to be.

There's just no reason for it, story-wise. If EY had wanted the distance to Pioneer 11 to relate to Quirrell's zombie-ness in this way, he would have written the story so that the hard time-travel limit was 4.84 hours, so that it would coincide with the last day of classes. That makes a good story.

But the dates don't line up, and so there's no reason to believe that this is anything other than a fun theory.

5drethelin
That doesn't make any sense. Eliezer quite often tries to point out that things don't go down the way they do in stories, and it would be a ridiculously unlikely coincidence that whatever the time travel limit was, that happened to be the exact distance in light hours from earth to Pioneer on a certain date in the future. If the plaque is horcruxed, it happened WAY before Harry was even born, so it's not like Quirrel could've even arranged it to coincide with the end of Harry's first year at Hogwarts intentionally for drama.

Very clever idea! But it doesn't pan out, sadly. I just checked on Wolfram-Alpha. The distance from the earth to Pioneer 11 on the Ides of May, 1992, Quirrell's presumed last day of class, is actually 4.84 light hours, not 6.

Some experimenting on W-A shows that Pioneer 11 passes 6 light hours around August 25, 1995.

0avichapman
Good point about the light hours thing. It sort of kills the hypothesis. I agree with drethelin that the 6 hour mark doesn't have to correspond with Quirrel's last day of school. However, in the last story arc, Quirrel talks like his time limit is only a short time away, perhaps only a month. Of course, he could be talking about his inevitable firing from the defense professor position.
0drethelin
In what sense does it not pan out? Why would Quirrel's last day of class need to align with the last day he will be able to maintain his body on earth?
matheist140

He also spent a long time with the sorting hat.

"Goyle, Gregory!" There was a long, tense moment of silence under the Hat. Almost a minute.

Chapter 9

Hm, that's a very good point. If Harry is aware of his own ignorance, then he might be willing to accept that there are ways of knowing things like "which spell did the dark lord cast", without actually knowing himself what those ways are.

In that case — i.e. in the case where Harry is aware of his own ignorance and is aware in that moment — then I have no idea what else the note of confusion could be.

1Sheaman3773
As I've thought before, the note of confusion could be why a spell that "strikes directly at the soul, severing it from the body" would leave a "burnt hulk of his body." It's not doubtless, there are explanations for why this might make sense--perhaps it does kill at a touch, and then sets the body on fire; it's magic, who knows?--but this makes the most sense to me.

I like the new changes to chapter 7 (I'm not sure how long they've been up). The conversation between Harry and Draco flows better, makes more sense for the characters, and the force of the original text is still present.

Two thumbs up!

I only just realized that Harry must have purchased that Spoon +4 in Diagon Alley, since he's not capable of wandless magic and we never hear of him using a wand when his spoon is stirring his cereal for him.

Interestingly, I also thought that the green goggles mentioned in the same sentence were a Wizard of Oz shoutout -- but they turned out to have an in-story use as well. When will we see bounce boots, knives +3, and forks +2?

375th
Harry's spoon wasn't actually stirring his cereal of its own accord; Harry's mind was just so far away from the breakfast table that his hand was doing it on autopilot, so that the spoon might as well have been acting of its own accord. When it says "absentmindedly", it wasn't the spoon that was absentminded, but rather Harry himself.

Caution, possible spoilers, in the form of comments about the guessability (or lack thereof) of the plot. First quote and second quote.

I always assumed that the note of confusion was, "How could anyone possibly know what spells the dark lord cast, and what the effects were, if there were no survivors besides a baby".

775th
Hmm. It occurs to me that Harry's life in chapters 1 and 2 bears some similarities to Tom Riddle's life from canon. Both their mothers used potions to make their fathers love them; both their fathers thought magic was disgraceful; the Deputy Head of Hogwarts visited both of them, showed them magic, made them thirsty for knowledge of magic, and warned them against unacceptable behavior that both of them had exhibited in the past; both of them always knew they were extraordinary, and were proved right when magic came into their lives. …but even if all that is intentional, which it almost certainly is, I still don't see what we're supposed to infer about the entire plot. Is Harry going to grow up, murder his family, create six Horcruxes, and hide them where someone can easily find them and destroy them? That makes quite a bit more sense, and should in fact have been incredibly obvious. I didn't start reading Methods until the hiatus following the Stanford Prison Experiment arc, and I didn't start thinking and theorizing until after I'd read all those chapters twice, so I didn't approach the question with a properly blank slate.

Ng gigebcrf, rl fnlf, "V gubhtug crbcyr jrer tbvat gb trg "gur cybg" sebz Pu. 1-3, cbffvoyl Pu. 1, naq guvf jnf gur Vyyhfvba bs Genafcnerapl", naq yngre "Ru, lbh'yy frr jung V'z gnyxvat nobhg nsgre lbh ernq gur svany nep naq gura ernq Puncgre 1 ntnva."

What would a hypothesis about the end of the story look like which uses only information from chapter 1?

Claim: Harry's war with Voldemort will destroy the world. Support: In Chapter 1, Petunia says about Lily's reasons for not making her pretty, "And Lily would tell me no, a... (read more)

5gjm
If Harry's going to end the world, surely a more likely way -- especially given the author's known interests and opinions -- is by bringing about the magical world's equivalent of a Singularity? MoR!Harry is on record (albeit not in chapters 1-3) as wanting to take over the world and, er, optimize it. There are suggestions elsewhere that terrible things have happened in the past on account of over-powerful magic. (Again, not in chapters 1-3.) Centaurs and other purveyors of prophecy might dread this even if the singularity ends up being a good one, because it would be a point beyond which they wouldn't be able to see anything. Another possibility -- which again could reasonably be said to be heavily foreshadowed, if it comes to pass, but not in the first few chapters: Harry is somehow going to put an end to magic. (He wants to do away with Azkaban by any means possible, no matter how drastic. He's already explicitly considered the question of which side he'd be on if it came down to muggles versus wizards, and decided for the muggles.) I don't assign a terribly high probability to either of these. There seems to be no shortage of mutually incompatible outcomes with a certain degree of foreshadowing, and if there's a good way to decide between them then I haven't spotted it yet.
675th
I've always suspected that Petunia's paraphrases there of Lily are mostly true — that's a contributing factor to my believing that some level of apocalypse is in the story's future — but just guessing that Really Bad Stuff is going to happen seems a far cry from us "getting 'the plot' " from Chapter 1, or chapters 1 through 3. Neither the remainder of Chapter 1 nor the whole of Chapter 2 seem to have any significant hints. In Chapter 3, here is what I can see that might have hidden meaning: Maybe we were supposed to get more out of this at the time? Perhaps we were supposed to infer that Quirrell or one of his alter egos had been an up-and-coming hero? Maybe, contrary to my previous protestations, we are supposed to believe that Harry wasn't really hit with Avada Kedavra? I'd always chalked this up as being the revelation Harry has at the end of the Humanism arc: that Dark Lords don't usually go after infant children, and that there must be an important reason why Voldemort did. But maybe there's something more to it. …Or, conversely, maybe we have already figured out the stuff Eliezer was referring to, we just didn't figure it out as early as he expected. Matheist, do you have a link to that quote? I couldn't find it by ⌘Fing Methods's TV Tropes pages. ---------------------------------------- (Does anyone else find it really weird to read "EY" as a reference to Eliezer? It always reads to me like a Spivak pronoun with faulty verb agreement.)

If I were Quirrell, and I wanted Hermione out of Hogwarts, and Dumbledore has warded her against magic, and I failed to convince her to leave, what would I try next?

I would identify those people who have the most influence over her, and attempt to convince them to convince her to leave. Who have we seen to have influence over her? By "influence", I mean that she respects them or might for some reason listen to them. Harry, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Mandy, her parents.

Quirrell likely won't be able to (or won't attempt to) talk Dumbledore, ... (read more)

1Desrtopa
Shouldn't that depend on why he wants her to leave? If I were Quirrell, and I were trying to isolate Harry without him suspecting I was trying to isolate him, I would not encourage him to make the people around him leave. I also wouldn't want to do anything that would risk making the other professors unnecessarily suspicious.
4[anonymous]
"Not magic" seems like the obvious answer to me. RL Humans have been doing terrible things to each other forever without breaking any laws of physics.
1cultureulterior
I'm not sure the Powers that Be at Hogwarts would allow her to be taken home by her parents...
matheist200

We, the readers, know directly about lots of evil things Quirrell has done (e.g. kill Skeeter, break Bellatrix out of prison). We have also used this knowledge to guess at nefarious motives in other, less obvious, cases: like guessing that he was trying to dement Harry, or guessing that he is Hat&Cloak, or guessing that he is constantly manipulating Harry for his own ends.

Dumbledore has access to none of this knowledge. To Dumbledore, Quirrell is an exceptional teacher of Battle Magic who has the interests of the students at heart. He does not appear t... (read more)

DanArmak100

Wait, breaking out Bellatrix was evil?

Wait, killing Skeeter was evil?

I was under the impression that that created a tremendous dose of positive utility for pretty much everyone. Readers included.

matheist160

Lucius is a slytherin, and not stupid. What if he really does believe Hermione is a pawn? The question remains — whose pawn?

Lucius might believe Hermione is Dumbledore's pawn.

Lucius already believes D killed his wife, and so he would have no trouble believing Dumbledore is targeting his son. In fact, it would be to Dumbledore's advantage (so might think Lucius) to target Draco in such a way that D can avoid taking the blame. If D wanted to impose political costs on Lucius, one way he might do it is to have someone utterly beyond suspicion be found to have ... (read more)

0buybuydandavis
I see him gaining political capital by destroying the mudblood girl who publicly challenged and defeated his pureblood son. The purebloods in the WIzengamot were aching to abuse her.
3Xachariah
My mental model of Lucius is here. The summary of it is that Lucius thinks that Harrymort has turned sides and is now psuedo-allied with Dumbledore. Lucius thinks he's just aligned himself on the weak side of a 2-on-1 secret war against the two strongest wizards alive, but he has no choice because they both want to destroy him.
0Joshua Hobbes
I don't think Harry would buy that. If Dumbledore wanted Draco dead, he'd be dead. He's headmaster of the school for frack's sake. And he certainly has no reason to frame Granger. His only motive for harming Malfoy would be to make Lucius throw everything away on getting Harry, after all. So unless our hero is about to confess that he is guilty, I think Dumbledore is probably innocent.

I also read a theory somewhere (can't remember where) that if, in canon, Voldemort had killed Harry in the graveyard as intended, he and his crew could use the portkey's return trip in order to wreak havoc upon Hogwarts; they can't just apparate in, and all the ministry officials would be trapped there for them to slaughter, without escape routes.

This part is never explicitly stated, but I assume they alert Rita to Quirrell and manufacture some silly rumors about him being a former Death Eater and training Harry to be the Next Dark Lord.

I agree — though it's hard to tell because chapter 25 is written out of order. But a week passes between when Harry asks the twins for a plot and the lunch with Quirrell when Harry reads the paper: Act 2 is stated as happening on Sunday; directly afterwards, in act 3, Harry talks with Draco and borrows 40 galleons, and sometime afterwards, probably directly after... (read more)

I read this as meaning that Dumbledore's order that Snape stop reading minds is just to mollify Harry. Dumbledore reads students' minds (I argue here that Dumbledore reads the Weasley twins' minds), and hence doesn't actually care whether Snape does the same.

Harry, of course, has no way of checking that Snape is following this order, so it's safe for Dumbledore to cross his fingers under the table, so to speak.

5loserthree
Dumbledore never promised to stop reading student's minds. Not int chapter 18 when he said Snape would make that promise or in chapter 20 when he is called on reading HJPEV's mind. Also, Dumbledore's offered compromise to HJPEV was this: It is not difficult to argue that the safety of some student, somewhere requires constant readings of the minds of the Weasley twins.

It wasn't Snape's choice to humiliate Hermione publicly — that was Dumbledore's decision, making use of Snape's "evil potions master" persona. Note that none of the other professors speak up, except for Quirrell, who is a temporary hire and need not follow Dumbledore's direction. Minerva doesn't even show up, presumably so that she doesn't have to sit and keep her mouth shut.

Dumbledore explains to Harry in chapter 77 that Hermione had to be seen to lose publicly in order to de-escalate the conflict with Slytherin. Dumbledore doesn't actually know... (read more)

3Eugine_Nier
I suspect it's because we wanted SPHEW to really go after bullies and wasn't a competent enough plotter to foresee what would happen.

Actually, I think the Slytherin students reasoned rationally yet happened not to get the right answer.

Slytherin thinks that Snape can get away with being horrible because he's blackmailing Dumbledore, that Harry found out how Snape is blackmailing D, and that D now has to try to please both of them.

In actuality, Snape is horrible at Dumbledore's direction, in order that everyone think Snape is blackmailing him, when actually Snape is really on Dumbledore's side (chapter 77). (Or at least D thinks so, based on love-for-Lily.) But Dumbledore really does have... (read more)

Ch 76 - "I have had two mentors, over the course of my days. Both were extraordinarily perceptive, and neither one ever told me the things I wasn't seeing. It's clear enough why the first said nothing, but the second..." Snape's face tightened. "I suppose I would have to be naive, to ask why he stayed silent."

I've actually wondered which mentor is which, in Snape's telling: my guess is that the first one is Voldemort, and that Snape thinks it's "clear enough" that Voldemort didn't tell him Lily was shallow because he either... (read more)

Harry leaps to that conclusion before hearing from Dumbledore how difficult they are to create. Even if that was the method, there is still the question of how they managed to accomplish it.

My hypothesis — as of several chapters ago — is that Dumbledore assisted in the Rita prank. He certainly had the motive, since he's playing the game against Lucius and Rita was Lucius's pawn. He also had the means (being incredibly powerful). Why hadn't he acted against her earlier? Because he hadn't been clever enough to think up a good way to get at her without inviti... (read more)

0gwern
Hold on - didn't Lawful Good Dumbledore make a big deal earlier in the Snape fight that he didn't invade student's minds?

Just reread chapter 40.

"Which is why the Resurrection Stone is not the most valuable magical artifact in the world," said Harry.

"Precisely," said Professor Quirrell, "though I wouldn't say no to a chance to try it." There was a dry, thin smile on his lips; and something colder, more distant, in his eyes. "You spoke to Dumbledore of that as well, I take it."

Sounds to me like Quirrell had never heard of the resurrection stone before this conversation. Later in the chapter, it becomes apparent that he has never hear... (read more)

2prasannak
From Chap 26 Possibly Voldemort made the Resurrection stone/ring into a Horcrux while killing his 'uncle'. Later in the same chapter, Quirrell suggests that he's made Bacon's diary into a Horcrux. In canon, one of the main properties of a Horcrux is that it is indestructible by ordinary means, but since Quirrell has only 'recently acquired' this, it might just be charmed? Or would it be a Horcrux of Quirrell, rather than of Voldemort? Not sure... [Edit] Original comment was screwed up, I had something in mind, and wrote parts of it here which made little sense

He talks to Quirrell later about not making the obvious suggestion in front of Dumbledore, and goes on to say:

"If you happen to see a stone with that symbol," said Harry, "and it does talk to the afterlife, do let me know. I have a few questions for Merlin or anyone who was around in Atlantis." (Ch. 40)

2[anonymous]
Why is "summon Merlin" dangerous to suggest to someone who falsely believes in an afterlife? And if it is dangerous to suggest, why is it safe to actually do as a test?

He could ask Salazar Slytherin where the chamber of secrets was, perhaps.

cough

Unless H&C needs to figure out (through legilimancy) who else Zabini might have told about his existence, so that he can go and obliviate them too.

Nice. I like your explanation much better than mine. Keeping in mind that Lucius knows very little at this point about what Harry is like — and that Harry is only eleven! — I guess it's reasonable for Lucius to assume that such an observation by a fellow student of Draco's would require some adult tutelage.

3TomM
I just realised that I missed another very strong piece of evidence which immediately precedes Harry's statement: Draco states that Harry should meet Lucius - he is actually offering Harry privileged access to his father. This strengthens my view that Harry has noted that Draco offers (multiple paths to) influence with or threat to Lucius.

I don't understand Draco's exchange with Lucius at the end of Chapter 7. Anyone know what's going on?

Here are my thoughts, which of course may easily be completely wrong.

Facts: 1) Harry states, "So during the Incident at the Potions Shop, while Professor McGonagall was busy talking to the shopkeeper and trying to get everything under control, I grabbed one of the customers and asked them about Lucius."

2) Harry states, "So you really are his one weak point. Huh."

3) Draco's letter to his father asks about Harry's "weak point" co... (read more)

TomM120

No secret information is required for Harry to come to his conclusion of "So you really are his one weak point. Huh."

Available evidence:

  • Lucius is well known as a hard bastard (initially supplied by random customer, reinforced by Draco)
  • Draco is well cared for (he is healthy, very well dressed, displays no social anxieties, worships his father)
  • Draco is probably indulged or even spoiled (Draco's behaviour)
  • Draco is being groomed to be Lucius' successor and therefore his equal (very clear by this point)

From this evidence it can be reaso... (read more)

-1TomM
Harry saying that Draco was Lucius' only weak point was probably just an (accurate) surmise given the available evidence: * 1. Lucius is well known as a hard bastard (information from random customer) * 1. Draco is visibly well cared for (and his behaviour suggests that he is indulged or even spoiled in many ways) * 1. Draco is being raised to be his father's successor and equal Therefore Lucius probably loves Draco, making him a weak point. No secret information is actually required to make this assessment, though it might be considered a bit close to a guess.

I hope that doesn't turn out to be the reason for the conversation to have happened — it's a little unsatisfying. I guess another reason for H&C to need to talk to Zabini could be in order to use legilimancy on him. Presumably, in this case, to discover whether Zabini told anyone else besides his mother about H&C.

Edit: On reflection, this seems quite likely to me. H&C turns the conversation to betrayal, and if the plan is to use legilimancy on Zabini, then Zabini would need to be thinking about betrayals (and whether he has betrayed H&C) in order for the legilimancy to be useful.

I discovered this community through HP:MoR; I joined the discussion because there was a comment about the work which I wished to make. I've started reading the articles as well and am enjoying doing so.

Looking forward to all the shiny ideas!

matheist150

Re Chp 35

I searched all the threads, and didn't find any mention of this. There's a hint in the conversation between Hat&Cloak and Zabini: namely, the fact that there is a conversation at all. Why does H&C need to talk to Zabini if he's just going to obliviate him anyway? Here's one possible answer: he needs some information from Zabini.

I don't think he needs Zabini's report on the conversation — partly because he keeps talking afterwards, and partly because there are independent reasons to think that H&C is either Quirrel or an agent of Quirre... (read more)

1pedanterrific
I think you might be overthinking things. H&C keeps bringing the conversation around to the consequences of serial betrayal. One off-hand remark (the "keyed into the wards" comment) leads Zabini to think about his guesses as to who H&C might be. The Obliviation only comes after Zabini thinks to himself that no one gave him a chance to sell out H&C.
7orthonormal
Huh! Given that it would create (what currently looks like) a completely irrelevant tangent to the main plot, I think the interview might have just happened so that the readers can see Hat-and-Cloak in action. The excuse could be that Hat-and-Cloak is addicted to monologuing to characters that ve's about to Obliviate anyway. Also, welcome to Less Wrong!