Thanks again!
I’ve also added spoiler alert at the very beginning of the post. Hope it will help to protect those who might have not read HPMOR. Also, i thought that only title of the post is displayed on the front page, not post body or comments.
Sorry for causing trouble.
Klen Salubri
Karma: 25
[Question] Harry Potter and methods of rationality alternative ending.
The Rational Approach is when an engineer, while developing an evacuation plan, sets building on fire;
The Survivorship Bias is when the engineer looks at places where people are climbing out, and not to where those who were unable to get out were stuck;
The Fundamental Attribution Error is when we call the poor preparedness of the rescue service as the cause of the disaster is;
The Paradox of Information Access is when the number of suicide victims as a result of a panic exceeds the number of victims of a fire, but everyone talks about shaking in the stock market due to the bankruptcy of an insurance company that hired an engineer.
By strong shared activity, I meant something like an MMO or a real-life activity. Being subscribed to the same website doesn’t seem quite the same, although I could be wrong about that.
Which MMO? I’m playing COD from time to time, mostly because it includes several building from my home city (Stadium, Airport and several more), so event in the game on some extent mirror what’s happening on the streets of my hometown, same way as events in country mirror what’s happening around the world and vice versa. Also i used to play MUDs ages ago (that’s where does my nickname came from), but i don’t think anyone play them now.
After thinking a bit more about why I initially said no, I think it’s best for me to state the shape of my object level.
What I don’t think will work is declaring myself to be your friend and vice versa, which is essentially what I’ve tried to do before. Yes, I can try again, but I have no reason to expect that anything will be different if I simply repeat the same course of actions as last time.
Ah, no no, it would be kinda strange to make friends simply be declaring so. You said that you would like to have friend that would tell you to move one when you lost somebody, and explain why it might be best solution. In this case i don’t have to know all of your story from very birth to play role of friend, i just have to be a empathetic human and understand your emotions, so you could use me as a mirror. I have some experience of losing loved ones and living the struggle of acceptance. Call it not a friend but a temporary companion, if correct terminology is more required than actions. Friendship is pretty confusing concept in the age of business and social networking.
What do you think about simply continuing as we are and seeing what happens?
Guess, this is best solution.
Sure, there’s no way to know with absolute certainty. But if I had to live in a world where the sun gets ripped apart to create a bunch of fusion reactors and one where we leave it burning just in case there’s some alien race on Neptune or something… I’m going to have to go with the former. If a problem crops up, I’m sure the hypothetical civ capable of putting out the sun can handle it, even if only by jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction.
Actually, i thought that removing some big object from the cluster of stars could also affect all the nearest stars entangled together by gravity field. Not sure that jamming all the hydrogen back together and restarting the reaction would fix this issue.
This strikes me as noncentral fallacy. When you say removing birth, that sounds bad, but if the reason nobody has any more babies is because everyone is immortal… is that really so bad?
I not sure. Thing is human genetics works this way: male XY chromosome is prone to accumulate mutations as result to adaptation to changing environment, female chromosome due to its double nature is more stable and can fix bad mutations. So literally, process of death and birth is one of the main instruments of adaptation and evolution: men try to spread his genes, women try to pick most reliable by intuition, personal preferences or in some cases by making men confront each other. If you’re going to throw away birth-decay cycle, you will need to compensate somehow tool of nature which ensured species survival for millions of years.
As for the bug, yes, currently it can be helpful.
So let’s call it a feature:)
That doesn’t mean it’s the only way to nudge people into evaluating their actions or focusing on what’s important.
It is hard to argue that humanity makes a quantum leap only on the verge of total annihilation, same way as when child facing a possible humiliating punishment from a parent.
Ah. I didn’t understand what you were saying and took a stab at it (that I got wrong). I understand now. My gut says this pattern matches as “implausible pseudoscience”, but I don’t know enough science to refute or justify that claim. However, afaik Yudkowsky doesn’t support any view like this (he’s a big cryonics proponent) and so I think it’s unlikely that this is what he had in mind when he was deciding what HPMOR souls are.
It’s not a science at all, i just trying to find some possible scientific explanation to some unscientific stuff like “soul”, and probably i will burn in theoretical hell for doing so. Sure he is, as any living human being that put a lot of effort into building of its consciousness and adding changes into the world which will require much more time show up then human life allows. Pity he can’t join our conversation and share his valuable opinion on controversial questions we have risen here.
I knew the coma one, not the frozen one. That’s… kind of incredible, that there can be anything happening when it’s frozen.
Some frogs have a natural mechanism called cryoprotection, it surrounds cells with glucose, which prevents them from gradual drying out, which is a side effect of instant freezing. Unfortunately, our cells lack this mechanism. Also, I could not even imagine how much pain I would feel if someone freezes my head and then fastens it to another body. I think I could even lose all of my memories and remain with unconditioned reflexes only.
This is true if you simply stick it into a freezer. However, “freezing” brains for cryonics is much more involved than brain + freezer. Technically speaking, the cryonics process is vitrification, which doesn’t create ice crystals.
Thank you for an excellent article! It is funny that they say that “Cryonics is a belief”. Looks like science and beliefs are closer to each other than ever before.
I’ve never managed to be friends with someone online in the absence of a strong shared activity. Sorry.
No problem, you can always try one more time, taking into account that moving around the world or even city is kinda restricted now. I live by myself in remote location, yet it doesn’t stop me from keeping in touch with friends, not due to activity but because they understand and accept me. Not sure i understand what do you mean by “strong shared activity”, we do share activity by deeply discussing lots of subjects here. Anyways, it’s up to you, imposing myself is not on my list of preferences.
Yeah, okay, technically the troll killed Hermione. Asides from that quibble, Voldemort killed Skeeter, a centaur, the real Quirrel, and a nameless Death Eater. He might have killed other people, but those are the deaths I can recall off the top of my head.
Thank you for pointing this out.
Ehh, kind of. Transhumanist might be the wrong word, but from an objective perspective, the sun is stupendously wasteful. Far better to stop the fusion reaction, extract all the hydrogen, and fuse it under controlled conditions to extract more value. Aka “tear apart the stars”. Same idea with the earth (which would, literally, end the world). This seems to be the intended interpretation, but you could be right—after all, Harry almost destroys the world at the very end of the book via unintended side effects.
Oh, i thought that was related to Hermione being witch-troll-unicorn mutant. I just though, that in case Voldemort had not brought her back, Harry in case of successful resurrection might had try to make her unable to die, even if she desires so. Agree, it is stupendously wasteful and it might be better to extract materials and create another one star under controlled conditions or surround sun with something that can absorb energy, but imho it is only from the perspective of the one who wants more energy and thinks that he’s alone and only, subjective, not objective perspective. Who knows how sun’s “wasteful” radiation and gravity affects everything around.
Also, if fear of death is the moving force for creativity, the transhumanist answer isn’t to keep death around. It’s to remove death, and find another way to solve creativity. Same with work expanding to fill the allotted time; that’s not a law like a law of physics, it’s a bug in our brains.
Removing death may well mean removing it’s opposite, birth. Also, sometimes this “bug” helps people to evaluate their actions and focus on more important stuff. Even the laws of physics, or rather their interpretation, sometimes turn out to be imperfect.
True enough. Voldemort was the first time I could really relate to a character but even I would consider him evil (and, more importantly, insanely dangerous).
True, he is evil, this is a book about the struggle between good and evil after all, as controversial as the struggle itself. It seems to me that the “interaction” to a greater extent reflects the essence of what is happening then “struggle”. Yet somehow he have forced “good ones” to unite and cooperate. Also by teaching several life lessons he played role of father for Harry. Probably, because Potter have lost his father and his step-father was not too good at parenting, nevertheless, was also able to pass on some important skills to his adoptive son. (Honestly, I find it difficult to answer who is more dangerous: Harry or his teacher).
What? Are you saying that once you turn a brain off, there’s no way to turn it back on, because everything is stored in the equivalent of volatile memory?
Wow. This is not what i said, but you might have a point. I said that structure of brain might define properties of energy it stores and this properties could mirror memory. And that destruction of brain might lead to release of this energy to the surroundings. As for your question, what do you mean by turn a brain off”? As far as i know, brain of people in coma or even frogs frozen in water not “turned off” and show slight activity. So i would call it hibernation. As for human brain freezing it will likely cause cell membranes to be torn apart by asymmetrically freezing water, as it increases its volume while turning into ice. In case of heart failure, stopping feeding of brain cells, after exhaustion of nutrients in the capillary system and intracellular fluid, will lead to the beginning of irreversible necrotic processes, it is matter of a few minutes (speed of decay depends on temperature). So yes, in some sense, brain is equivalent of volatile memory, since the life of its constituent cells strictly depends on the ability to convert ATP into energy and use of energy to communicate and store information. Also, I must confess that i don’t have official degree in medicine, physics or chemistry, it is just side effect of family traditions and my curiosity.
Yeah, on second thought I think you’re right. He already had a hard time interacting with them before the ending; now I imagine the gulf will be too wide to overcome. But I do support him telling Draco—the choice was either tell draco + obliviation or keep it a secret. Harry also went to extraordinary lengths to bring Hermione back, when everyone else, even Quirrel, told him he should move on. That’s the kind of friend I want in my life.
Obliviation, right. Does anyone ask Draco where he was and what he was doing? I mean, don’t think that this spell can actually work, or, if it does, should cause unexpected side effects. Probably, appearing of fake memories which will dwell like ghosts in subconsciousness unable to integrate into a chain of causes and consequences until the moment victim would figure out what have happen or decide to overcome fear and gaze into the eyes of truth. Imagine you had zero apples, then one apple fell on your head, which led to a loss of memory. You wake up and find yourself with an apple in your arms. Will you start investigation or simply eat an apple? Or you find an apple tree, then you decide to erase your memories so no one will find an apple tree until the moment people learn how to preserve and cultivate trees. Yet you take one apple with you. I guess, in both cases it is just a matter of time when your memories will be logically reconstructed. “rien ne se perd, rien ne se cree, tout se transforme”.
I’m not sure that i’m the right kind of a person you need, nor can’t guarantee that i always be there when you need me (life is full of unexpected stuff and i live in pretty dangerous and unstable place), yet i could try to be your friend.
But he abandoned that plan after killing Hermione, because he heard a prophecy (narrated to us in the Defense Professor interlude)
Troll did. Interesting that Dumbledore offered Hermione to try to be a hero herself, yet forgot to mention that Harry have several powerful “white” mages to cover his back and most powerful “black” mage to guide him, teach how to protect himself, how to surrender saving dignity, retreat when it is necessary and keep emotions under control. Also, i can’t remember clearly, have Voldemort killed anyone during the book?
He freaked out because the last prophecy saw him end up in horcruxes for ten years. He decided he had to stop Harry, because otherwise he would “end” the world. The most likely interpretation is a transhumanist one, but Voldemort doesn’t realize that and thinks Harry will just kill everyone and destroy everything.
By “transhumanist” you mean something like denying death as essential part of birth-to-death cycle? Agree, most probably it will ruin natural cycle of life, not sure about “end of the world”. Also it could mean like getting everything under full control to exclude possibility of unexpected events, or “reversal of time” to fix previous errors, or going with his nano researches to deep to the places where flux of information will be too powerful for his brains to handle, or any other drastic change to the order of things his dark ego will decide to make without complete awareness and evaluation of consequences for closed ecosystem and universe he lives in. For similar reason getting rid of Dementors could be not that good idea if we imagine that they are projection of fear of death and oblivion, since this fear could be one of the moving forces for creativity (Parkinson’s law, you know. The more time you have to do the job, the more time you will spend to do it).
Voldemort’s evil, but he doesn’t want that.
People often call “evil” something they can’t control or understand. Precisely, they call something “evil” if it takes something valuable away and call it “miracle” if it adds something valuable.
When your body dies, your mind dies with it
Yep. But strictly in terms of theorizing, can we consider the body and brain as a capacitor which stores some type of energy with unique properties? Can combination of this proberties store some information? What will happen when capacitor is destroyed, will this cause some effect to surrounding field?
I hate to be that person, but actually you did call them friends...
No problem, i actually appreciate when people correct me if i’m wrong. Thank you! I just thought that using same word “fellows” in consequent sentences will sound ugly. It is usual for children to call a friend anyone they share experience with. And no, i don’t think that Harry will be able to befriend with any pupil which parent he have killed, no matter if they know he did it or no. Moreover, i don’t think that Harry can be friend for anyone among students of Hogwarts taking into account all the secrets that he keeps. Also, obliviating of friends is not cool, so i’m not sure Harry even knows what it means to be a friend to someone.
Hermione’s resurrection wasn’t a single act, but a series of separate spells.
Does it changes anything?
! First Harry untransfigured her corpse, then healed her to a nonmagical state: “Girl’ss body iss resstored. Ssubstance iss repaired. But not magic, or life… thiss iss body of dead Muggle.”
This related to all quotes of Voldemort. What made you think that he’s telling truth? Would he tell Harry that resurrected Hermione will cause trouble if he knew it? What plans Voldemort had for Harry and Hermione if his plan worked out? Maybe his plan was to force Harry to kill people, to taste the blood and become evil himself. And then to feel the loneliness that dark mage felt before becoming really dark.
but Hermione pretty clearly expressed a desire to be a hero before that.
And she was eaten by troll before she was able to become hero, due to lack of power, knowledge and experience. Yet, when she obtained enough powers to conquer the world she clearly stated that she is deffinately don’t want to become a hero because she’s just a human (which is obvious lies, she’s not a human anymore)
...Voldemort says souls aren’t real much earlier… Voldemort clearly says that Harry didn’t copy his soul into her… Souls aren’t real, and I outlined my reasoning above...
So your reasoning are the words of Voldemort, right? Souls are not real, yet ghosts are real, magic is real, troll powers imbued into someone’s resurrected body is real… there are some contradictions and puns. Maybe all these concepts have something on common? So, before we say that souls aren’t real and ghosts are real, we should define what is soul and what is ghost and are there really any difference.
Voldemort wanted to make her indestructible so she would serve as a more reliable restraint on Harry
I don’t get it. Why would indestructible Hermione would serve as restraint on Harry? Would restrain him from doing what? Does Harry ever tried to destroy her?
Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone except maybe Voldemort knows how to do that
If Voldemort was ready to show his most precious magic to Harry, he could also tell him how to find Horcruxes. Looks like he was pretty sure that unveiling some secrets to Harry won’t cause any troubles. By the way, if he was going to defeat Harry in the final scene, why he was sure that indestructible unicorn-troll-witch won’t become a problem for him? In final scenes Voldemort looks to me more like Santa then as the most evil, prudent and cunning sorcerer with centuries of experience, which is confronted by little yet talented boy that reads too much but feels too little.
Was Harry really friends with any Slytherins except Draco? Draco definitely rejected Harry afterwards, once Harry explained what had happened (and then Harry brought him to his mom anyways)
I called them fellows, not friends. As for Draco, any child will reject the one who killed his parents. If Voldemort hadn’t killed Potter’s parents, who knows how history would have developed.
Hermione didn’t seem to really mind the transformation, and she always wanted to be a hero. Now she’s got a chance at that. Plus she clearly has her own pre-death mind, more or less, so I wouldn’t call her a golem or bodyguard. As for the other unintended side effects… yeah. Maybe the Bayesian Conspiracy can figure something out.
Sure she didn’t, she was dead when an act of resurrection occurred that demanded the soul of other creatures, which suggests that she lost her own soul, yet not memory, this is why i named her a golem. And being friends with Harry is already could be considered an act of heroism. Also, what is so heroic about being eaten by a troll? I named her bodyguard because this is what she will do now. First of all because Harry brought her back (well, not Harry actually), and secondly, because in case of death or even losing of consciousness, Harry will cause release of the one who reanimated her. Oh, she could try to release him herself and ask to bring her soul back, which is obviously impossible.
Harry told Mad-Eye and a couple others (the adult Bones and Minerva I think were among them but I’m not sure). Also, it wasn’t that he was afraid to lose his dark side—the dark side is part of him, it’s not something he can “lose”. It’s that Voldemort had a million phylacteries, most of which were very well hidden. Being unable to kill the evil, Harry took the standard option: seal it away. Presumably the mages he told are smart enough to know better than to advertise that Harry sealed Voldemort instead of killing him.
Oh, thank you for pointing this out. Probably plot of HP somehow mixed with HPMORT in my memory. In source book Harry was keeping part of essence of Voldemort inside himself, so when their magic collided, it led to destruction of soul of bad guy. Anyways, the way of thinking of Potter’s dark side, which he hides from everyone else, somehow really similar to the ways of thinking of his favorite teacher. If Voldie had millions of seeds, wouldn’t it be better to make them detectable, rather than to resuscitate Hermione that have chosen to die? Being unable to win, Harry took the same option as Voldie would do: kill all the rivals and enslave the most dangerous one, so he will be untouchable by the ones who afraid of most dangerous one.
Thank you. I will be grateful if you teach me how to put spoiler tags or direct me to the topic where i can learn it