I’ve argued before that HPMOR probably includes some kind of mind/body dualism. It occurs to me that an interesting experiment is about to be performed.
The body of Hermione Granger has been infused with the life and magic of Harry Potter. I assume for narrative reasons that Hermione will wake up as Hermione. But a copy of Harry could wake up in Hermione’s body instead.
The mechanisms behind a person’ life force, magic force, and mind are unknown to us. We don’t also don’t know whether or to what extent these aspects of a person are separate or connected. It should be assumed throughout this post that I am talking about the minds of magical people, and that muggles could be a separate case.
If Hermione wakes up as Hermione after being resurrected by Harry’s life force and magic force I will conclude:
A mind is probably not made up only of a person’s life force and/or magic force. The only exception I can think of is if the mind runs on a substrate of your life and/or magic force but the Patronus 2.0 or resurrection process strip that information out of the projected life and magic, passing the substrate but not the pattern on it.
Either the mind has at least something to do with the body OR magic will, upon resurrection, retrieve the mind that is supposed to go with the body OR Harry’s intent is sufficient to establish what was supposed to happen here.
Related to #1, atomic souls in the sense of “an animating force that contains a person’s life, magic, and mind all in one non-physical object that persists beyond that person’s death” would be ruled out. Life beyond death would not be ruled out, but souls could not be things with no smaller components if they exist at all.
I would update to consider possibilities like “your mind is just your brain but magic stores it in other dimensions or on a magical substrate when required” more likely than I previously did.
If Hermione wakes up as a copy of Harry in Hermione’s body I will conclude:
Mind/body monism is almost certainly false. Your mind is not your brain in any sense; the brain is at best an interface that the mind uses or a home that it resides in. Monism could only be rescued if magic turned Hermione’s brain into Harry’s brain during the resurrection process.
Your mind either is inseparable from your life and/or magic or it is a pattern on a life/magic substrate that is transmitted with that subtrate through the Patronus 2.0 resurrection process.
I will update to consider atomic souls as described above to be more likely than I previously did.
Separately, in a world with mind/body monism, I wonder whether regeneration as a magic that always transfigures you back into yourself would prevent learning. Probably not. Magic tends to have the intended effect rather than a strictly mechanistic one.
I’ve argued before that HPMOR probably includes some kind of mind/body dualism. It occurs to me that an interesting experiment is about to be performed.
The body of Hermione Granger has been infused with the life and magic of Harry Potter. I assume for narrative reasons that Hermione will wake up as Hermione. But a copy of Harry could wake up in Hermione’s body instead.
The mechanisms behind a person’ life force, magic force, and mind are unknown to us. We don’t also don’t know whether or to what extent these aspects of a person are separate or connected. It should be assumed throughout this post that I am talking about the minds of magical people, and that muggles could be a separate case.
If Hermione wakes up as Hermione after being resurrected by Harry’s life force and magic force I will conclude:
A mind is probably not made up only of a person’s life force and/or magic force. The only exception I can think of is if the mind runs on a substrate of your life and/or magic force but the Patronus 2.0 or resurrection process strip that information out of the projected life and magic, passing the substrate but not the pattern on it.
Either the mind has at least something to do with the body OR magic will, upon resurrection, retrieve the mind that is supposed to go with the body OR Harry’s intent is sufficient to establish what was supposed to happen here.
Related to #1, atomic souls in the sense of “an animating force that contains a person’s life, magic, and mind all in one non-physical object that persists beyond that person’s death” would be ruled out. Life beyond death would not be ruled out, but souls could not be things with no smaller components if they exist at all.
I would update to consider possibilities like “your mind is just your brain but magic stores it in other dimensions or on a magical substrate when required” more likely than I previously did.
If Hermione wakes up as a copy of Harry in Hermione’s body I will conclude:
Mind/body monism is almost certainly false. Your mind is not your brain in any sense; the brain is at best an interface that the mind uses or a home that it resides in. Monism could only be rescued if magic turned Hermione’s brain into Harry’s brain during the resurrection process.
Your mind either is inseparable from your life and/or magic or it is a pattern on a life/magic substrate that is transmitted with that subtrate through the Patronus 2.0 resurrection process.
I will update to consider atomic souls as described above to be more likely than I previously did.
Separately, in a world with mind/body monism, I wonder whether regeneration as a magic that always transfigures you back into yourself would prevent learning. Probably not. Magic tends to have the intended effect rather than a strictly mechanistic one.
(edited for formatting and grammar)
Also if Hermione wakes up as a copy of Harry:
4 - Harry and most of the HPMOR readers will be extremely dismayed at this development.