Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

[WarDaft]

Fantastic!

Spoiler:

What a way to end a chapter.

And Harry has most surely successfully 'infected' Draco with good intentions. How that will eventually turn out, I'm not quite willing to guess.

Here's hoping not to wait nearly months for the next one!

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

If only the podcast had Stephen Fry

[WaterToFire]

Yay, new chapter at long last, and yay, my cameo happened. I wasn't expecting Tanaxu to be an owl but I much appreciate it.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

Oh, congratulations. That's rather neat.

[skeptical scientist]

Yay, new chapter at long last, and yay, my cameo happened. I wasn't expecting Tanaxu to be an owl but I much appreciate it.

Cameo? Cool! How did that come about?

[WaterToFire]

I made some fan art a while back. Right here.

[Jorpho]

Is someone keeping track of the number of times one character stares, mouth agape, at another?

It brings to mind that time Conan Doyle pissed off J. M. Barrie.

[Robot_Raptor]

So, i was talking with Josephine about MoR, and an interesting thought process came up.

Harry can't make a nano-assembler since it hasn't been invented.

Experiment number 1:
1. Think of something
2. try to transfigure it
3. if 2 failed, go invent it
4. try to transfigure it again

Experiment 2:
1. Read the literature, looking for things people are on the verge of inventing.
2. Repeatedly try to transfigure those things until success
3. Wait for announcement of invention, to see if it matches with the first successful transfiguration.

Experiment 3:
1. Find something uninvented
2. find someone else to invent it, and have them, in their invention include a message (carved into a strut or something)
3. When you can finally transfigure it see if the message is passed.

Experiment 4:
if the message from experiment 3 isn't passed, is it because all unnecessary information is stripped?
1. find something uninvented
2. continually try to transfigure it
3. when making the invention add useless greeble that doesn't do anything
4. see if greeble is passed to transfigured system or stripped.

Experiment 5:
If the greeble is stripped in experiment 4
1. use an evolutionary algorithm to generate an invention
2. transfigure it
3. compare original to final, to see if there are any differences (if there are then transfiguration could be used to iteratively improve a design)
4. if no differences, see if you can analyse the evolved and transfigured design to cut more away from it (if you can, then someone probably needs to *know* that part of it is greeble and unnecessary, if you can't nothing much is shown)

and we got onto magical items

Experiment 6:
1. see if an enchantment can be transfigured.

Experiment 7:
if experiment 6 can transfigure enchantments
1. Can you use that to overcome arduous reagent and skill requirements in creating an enchantments?

Experiment 8:
if experiment 6 fails
1. if you transfigure something magical and get a non-magical version of that item analyse the two of them to see what makes them different. It'll probably help narrow down what magic is.

[The Mighty Thesaurus]

Anyone else listening to the podcast? The American accents make it all very weird.

[skeptical scientist]

Anyone else listening to the podcast? The American accents make it all very weird.

Nah, I already read the whole thing. The podcast is just the book read aloud, right?

[Kisama]

If another chapter isn't released soon I am going to give in and start reading from the beginning again... and the consequences for my productivity shall be dire

[Kolko]

I believe I have read it seven times from beginning to end now. My productivity has been doomed for a while.

[Josephine]

I don't speak French. I can read the french translation. I think I've read it a few times...

[jobriath]

Damn you, Josephine, I was accomplishing things today.

[HungryHobo]

anyone know if the book is dead now? has the author said anything about it since the last release?

[Macbi]

anyone know if the book is dead now? has the author said anything about it since the last release?

Eliezer is still around on the internet, so presumably he would have said if he intended to stop writing.

[Levi]

I've been listening to the podcast and in chapter 17

Spoiler:

when Harry tries to test his time-turner by finding the primes, the paper says "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME". I could have sworn that the test worked perfectly when I read it the first time. Am I imagining things?

[Yakk]

I've been listening to the podcast and in chapter 17

Spoiler:

when Harry tries to test his time-turner by finding the primes, the paper says "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME". I could have sworn that the test worked perfectly when I read it the first time. Am I imagining things?

Spoiler:

That was a previous loop

[Josephine]

Although something I noticed: the very words "DO NOT MESS WITH TIME" were information gained from a loop. Same with Dumbledore's NO. I'm not sure if that's just an oversight...

[WarDaft]

I don't think it's an oversight, I think it's just a more powerful stable loop. When you get, in your own handwriting, "do not mess with time"... that's a message you're sure to send back.

Whereas if you just get the numbers, there's the temptation to see what happens if you try not sending it back.

IE the probability of you following through on it determines the likelihood that it is what happens.

[Jorpho]

I declare, I don't much care for all this tiresome blather about Hermione and heroism at all. Kind of makes me wonder if he's written himself into a corner.

[Yakk]

Yes. HP "leveled up" too much in the previous storyline.

[4d0m]

Eliezer just asked on less wrong for a translation of a short latin poem for HPMOR. It's good to know he's still working on it.

[Jorpho]

See, I figured the obvious segue after the last chapter would be

Spoiler:

the teaching of Avada Kedavra in Defense Class

as per that handy plot hook that was left open a while ago. Not this.

[JoshuaZ]

And the next chapter is up. Hilarious and insightful.

[jobriath]

Whenever we resurrect this thread, Eliezer posts. Everyone go quiet for a week!

[WarDaft]

That doesn't always hold.

And right now there's no need, as we're promised at least 5 more chapters in the authors note at reliable intervals. Apparently that's part of why this one took so long - getting followups ready.

[aleflamedyud]

Bacteria.

Haha, clearly we're doing something wrong, otherwise the spell would be pretty useless.


And that picture is hilarious.

Professor Quirrell describes it as working on "anything with a brain".

Every time I hear avada kedavra is unblockable I keep thinking so what?

We already know wizards can bend space like nobody's business, why not bend it so that from the spells perspective it travels in a straight line, but from your perspective it either curves around you, or disappears in front of you and reappears behind you, or any other manner of impossible without magic but clearly possible with magic temporal folds.

Problem is, they tend to think of bending space as Making a Place Bigger On the Inside rather than Bending the Fabric of Space. Without the understanding of what space is, they can figure out the former, but they can't do a battle-time space-bend to misdirect curses.

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

I declare, I don't much care for all this tiresome blather about Hermione and heroism at all. Kind of makes me wonder if he's written himself into a corner.

Blew up in the last two chapters and turned awesome.

Spoiler:

Professor Quirrell's lips twisted further. "Ah, but the truly amusing thing was this. You see, Mr. Potter, the chant of every ritual names that which is to be sacrificed, and that which is to be gained. The chant which you gave to Miss Davis spoke, first, of a darkness beyond darkness, buried beneath the flow of time, whose voice echoes in the emptiness, which knows the gate, and is the gate. And the second thing spoken of, Mr. Potter, was the manifestation of your own presence. And always, in each element of the ritual, first is named that which is sacrificed, and then is said the use commanded of it."

"I... see," said Harry, as he trod through the halls of Hogwarts after Professor Quirrell, following him toward the Defense Professor's office. "So my chant, the way I wrote it, implies that the Outer God, Yog-Sothoth -"

"Was permanently sacrificed to fuel a ritual which but briefly manifested your presence," said Professor Quirrell. "I suppose we will discover tomorrow whether anyone took that seriously, when we read the newspapers and see whether all the magical nations of the world are banding together in a desperate effort to seal off your incursion into our reality."

[mister k]

I declare, I don't much care for all this tiresome blather about Hermione and heroism at all. Kind of makes me wonder if he's written himself into a corner.

Blew up in the last two chapters and turned awesome.

Spoiler:

Professor Quirrell's lips twisted further. "Ah, but the truly amusing thing was this. You see, Mr. Potter, the chant of every ritual names that which is to be sacrificed, and that which is to be gained. The chant which you gave to Miss Davis spoke, first, of a darkness beyond darkness, buried beneath the flow of time, whose voice echoes in the emptiness, which knows the gate, and is the gate. And the second thing spoken of, Mr. Potter, was the manifestation of your own presence. And always, in each element of the ritual, first is named that which is sacrificed, and then is said the use commanded of it."

"I... see," said Harry, as he trod through the halls of Hogwarts after Professor Quirrell, following him toward the Defense Professor's office. "So my chant, the way I wrote it, implies that the Outer God, Yog-Sothoth -"

"Was permanently sacrificed to fuel a ritual which but briefly manifested your presence," said Professor Quirrell. "I suppose we will discover tomorrow whether anyone took that seriously, when we read the newspapers and see whether all the magical nations of the world are banding together in a desperate effort to seal off your incursion into our reality."

That was actually my least favourite thing about that chapter- felt rather obnoxiously myth building. Whenver fanfiction feels the need to bring in other worlds it always comes across as really awkward to me.

[WarDaft]

Well, it strikes me as much more likely that

Spoiler:

Quirrel is simply familiar with Lovecraft. We've known Harry to be for some time, so it's no surprise he makes reference to it in his super duper ritual, and it turns out that he just implied he's literally the worst possible thing in or beyond existence.

The bullies familiar with dark rituals are supposed to be scared, not because they recognize the Lovecraft reference, but because the ritual is so absurdly flashy compared to what great rituals typically entail.

Or are we supposed to presume that Beetlejuice is real in the wizard world two because Harry's name is spoken three times?

The 'other world' that is being brought in is, as has been repeatedly in the past, simply ours.

Now, if investigating the ritual seriously, the wizard council of whatever could no doubt find some of Lovecraft's work to determine the implication of what was said in the ritual.

[Sheikh al-Majaneen]

Also, I think it suggests to everyone present in that room that Harry Potter's magic's source is incomprehensibly vast and ancient. The name of Yog-Sothoth would have meant nothing to them, but the words they would have understood as used to summon him were not meaningless.

(He is, to other Hogwarts students, supposed to perform impossible feats by snapping his fingers)

[Team503]

I must say that I adore this fic, and it really got me thinking about rationality in ways I hadn't before. Which is, honestly, at all.

[mister k]

you misunderstand me. Its not unreasonable for Harry and Quirrel to be aware of Cthulu, but it feels to me like the worst kind of winking at the audience, who are, of course, massive nerds for Cthulu. Its basically not terribly organic writing for me.

[Kisama]

Well, Chapter 75 has left me with an unsatisfied feeling and I wish I had waited for Chapter 76 to appear before reading it.

Strange, now that I have read through from the beginning again I feel compelled to read each new chapter twice. I hope there isn't another long break that might cause me to add a third iteration...

On my second time through I noticed a few things to nitpick/question/bring up in this thread, but alas I didn't take notes, which is my excuse for making no contributions to the intelligent conversation on here.

</stream of consciousness>

Edit:

you misunderstand me. Its not unreasonable for Harry and Quirrel to be aware of Cthulu, but it feels to me like the worst kind of winking at the audience, who are, of course, massive nerds for Cthulu. Its basically not terribly organic writing for me.

The fic is full of nerd-culture references, many of which I'm sure went right over my head (the Cthulu one is actually an example of that...) but I have enjoyed the odd chuckle at MoR!Harry's many references which must be completely incomprehensible to the wizard-borns in the story (

Spoiler:

"My hovercraft is full of eels," said Harry.
"I will not buy this record, it is scratched," chorused his four Lieutenants.

.... *giggles*) which in my opinion makes these "winks at the audience" a valid inclusion in a story about a Chaotic-Good muggle-born nerd going to Hogwarts.

[mister k]

I don't mind a subtle wink- the speech itself wasn't that bad (but seriously, Harry must be the most culturally aware teenager ever. I understand that he is precocious, but he is familiar with first year mathematics, the principles of rationality, and the whole of geekdom, from Python to lovecraft. I guess an internet savvy youth might get those references, but usually making them means one has actually consumed said culture!), but the whole bit with Quirrel afterwards came up as too muchness.

I actually enjoyed chap 75 a bit more, weirdly, because it felt more real. The escalating stakes of the bullies just hasn't worked for me- I feel it peaked with Tonks then slumped with Quirrel. I think after Azkaban, trying to inject menace into bullies just strikes me as a bit odd (it was strongly implied in the books that bullying rarely went very far in the schools, even if it was common. After all, the only student that has died in Hogwarts over the past century was killed by the monster of slytherin.)

[WarDaft]

I suppose it was naive of me to hope for

Spoiler:

a happy resolution after Dumbledoor said that 'it had to end.' Now, sure, it was definitely a good resolution, but no way it was a happy one.

I really enjoyed chapters 74 and 75, and apparently the whole SPHEW didn't bother me nearly as much as it did a lot of people. I mean yeah, I wanted to know where Harry's story was going, but I didn't mind the diversion for pacing reasons. What I minded was waiting so freaking long!

[aleflamedyud]

The Dark ritual in the play referenced during the gossip in Chapter 75 sounds like a reference. Anyone catch it?

Also, Professor Quirrell is a gigantic troll.

[WarDaft]

No, but if you read the author notes, he admits it was perhaps a bit too obscure, and just tells what it is.

Chapter 76: Oh. Dear.

[existentialpanda]

Chapter 76.


WHAT.