A quick-informal post on - Yudkowsky's Harry Potter!

My mid-week posting will be of NO interest to most of you! (Move along, now.  Move along.)  It has to do with Eliezer Yudkowsky’s brilliantly popular-if-weird, episodic fanFiction novel: “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.” I know some of you have enjoyed it as much as I have, all the more so, since this deliberate re-imagining of J.K. Rowling’s epic fantasy universe is logical, well-written, compelling… and Eliezer can never make one slim nickel from it!

(In this alternate world, Harry is raised by a scientist to be a math-sci prodigy before the Hogwarts letter arrives. He goes to the magical academy determined to study the underpinnings of magic and to find out what the HECK is going on!)

(Yudkowsky's Harry Potter! Sounds a bit like Jodorowsky's Dune?)

Here is the beginning of this fun riff off a beloved universe, taking it in directions very different from the original. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

HPMoR is finally coming to a close. In fact, Eliezer went to great lengths to show - by episode 113 - a stunningly clever Lord Voldemort anticipating and neutralizing every possible gambit that might be tried by Dumbledore or (this super-smart version of) Harry to thwart him.  E.Y. sets up a graveyard confrontation in which there appears to be no way out! Harry is doomed!…

… Then Eliezer challenges his readers to come up with a solution!  One that culminates Harry’s year long efforts to understand and utilize magic… using rationality.

See that penultimate scene, followed by Eliezer’s challenge and his rules.

Okay, I couldn’t help it. After reading the dire chapter 113 and Eliezer’s challenge/dare to his readers, I took maybe half an hour and dashed off my own proposed way-out for Harry, to both save his own life and thwart the Dark Lord’s sadistic plans.

Eliezer’s rules demanded that any solution make maximum use of Harry’s rationality and that it should take into account all that we had seen, during his year at Hogwarts. And above all, take into account the fey prophecy that “Harry Potter would destroy the world.”

 Frankly, I could see no other way-out than the one that I contrived. The author had us (and himself) thoroughly boxed-in. Moreover, to be honest, I expect any of you HPMoR fans to intensely dislike my solution!  Because (1) it consists mostly of TALK (hence the “rationality” part, and (2) it sounds a bit like the oldest cliche in the business.  Hence, I can see why Eliezer chose something else...

…a MAGIC TRICK.  Indeed, one that’s hardly foreshadowed at all. One that the Dark Lord would almost certainly have detected and expected, and that we had no reason to imagine Harry capable of. One that in no way answers the problem of the “prophecy,” nor answers any questions from Harry’s year long ponderings of the roots of magic.

Ah, but the one Eliezer chose is fun! And it has action! (Precisely because it does not use much “rationality.”) I will give Eliezer all that.  While grumbling that “my version makes more sense!”— I am still reading along and enjoying the heck out of his alternative.  After all, it’s his world.  Well… no… I mean… it’s more his world than mine.

Back to working on my own worlds, now. But here, below, just for you HPMoR fans, is David Brin’s alternate solution to the dilemma of chapter 114.

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Dear Eliezer.

First off. I was disappointed to learn that V's death threat to "hundreds of students" was a lame magic circle under the stadium bleachers.  Really? When it was so obvious that Voldemort was referring to the TRAIN?  Some loosened bolts on a bridge and hundreds would die under exactly the conditions V described... "if I am not here to prevent it" and “not within this castle.”  This could have led to a very cinematic race to save the train, after Harry's escape. Ah well.

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As for the problem at hand, posed at the end of the dramatically tense chapter 113, the answer should be obvious.

1) It must make maximum use of rationality.

2) It must take into account all the weird stuff Harry has seen and learned about “magic” and the mostly-moronic nature of Magical Britain.

3) It must be consistent with the prophecy that Harry Potter can and someday would “destroy the world.”

4) Voldemort has demanded that Harry offer “new muggle wisdom.”  So then? Go to a muggle level that Voldie has not yet plumbed.  Here goes --

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"You are aware, of courssse," Harry says at the start of 114. "How abssssurd you are? How blatantly obvious the Truth issss?"

"Explain yourssself!"

"I will use English, only verifying in Parssseltongue. But I promissse you, if you ssslay me for thisss, it will make the prophecy come true!"

Voldemort stared for a moment, then shrugged.  "In English then, Explain."

"I don't have time to explain fully, but it's become clear to me that all of this is just too convenient, too pat.  Everything from the fake-Latin of our charms, that preceded the invention of the Latin language by 6000 years... to the way that there's a clear inverse ratio between magic and intelligence..."

"Is it your intent to insult me before you die?"

"That is a side benefit, of course. But not the point. You asked about muggle insights, and I can tell you one, right off the top. And thisssss isss true. That - for all your cleverness, Lord V, you'd not rise above the level of a mid level advertising agent, in the outer world, and most likely still be in your mother's basement, gorging on Cheetos and playing at video games."

"Are you enjoying a last moment of insulting defiance, Mr. Potter?  For this, I will omit the stunning curse before dismembering --"

"A man of brilliance and substance would not care, Voldie, and that is the next to last clue."

Voldemort winced at being interrupted and his wand hand twitched. But he asked, through gritted teeth. "Clue?  What clue?"

"Ah, but then there is the final clue... this prophecy that I would ‘destroy the world.’ Are you freaking kidding me?  And you cannot see it? You truly cannot?"

"I --"

“What power could I conceivably have to ‘destroy the world’? Your habits of thought were so desperate to thwart any action on my part -- (and yet you left me in posssssessssion of my wand) -- that it never occurred to you to ask – might Harry’s power be inherent in who he is?  What he is?”

“Well. You’re a different version of me! And therefore…”

Harry laughed.  You know I accepted that rot for far too long.  Sure, there was some imprinting – but it’s not inherent.”

“Then what is? Oh time-wasting boy. Be warned that my patience is running thin.”

“Look at how you’ve struggled to arrange so that I can take no actions that destroy the world,  and yet, what actions are YOU about to take, Lord Voldemort?”

“Why, I am about to kill…”  the dark lord blinked. "...you."

“Hm, yes. And how did that go, the first time you tried it? Anyway, since you have removed any way for me to 'destroy the world' by volition, it means clearly that killing me will destroy the world!  Of course I am obliged by my recent vow to prevent it, if I can. And that issss why I am sssaying all thisss.”

Voldemort was silent, thinking hard, so Harry pressed on.

“How would killing one more Tom Riddle destroy the world? Answer. It couldn’t.  In fact, there’s only one way your killing me can do that.”

The dark lord stepped closer. “Tell me now.”

“Only if you swear in Parseltongue that my parents and all Hogwarts students are safe from you, for a year.”

“You would have me give up my one big leverage over you?”

        

“You have plenty more!... But…” he arched an eye at Voldemort.  “But I have leverage too. Thisss I tell you”

Seconds passed.  One of the Death Eaters behind Harry let out a low moan.

“Very well.  I ssswear if you offer up a plaussssible explanation, your parents and all Hogwarts students are safe from me, for a year.”

“Okay then… and what I am about to sssay isss the only plausssible explanation…” Harry took a breath -- "That we are living in a simulation,  A game.”

Again, the dark lord blinked, culminating in a sneer. “Truly, is that it, Potter? Such a bluff--”

"Sure, it's such a cliche that I have struggled to find any other way. But for a whole year, ever since Professor McGonnagle turned herself into a cat,  I've been pondering how ANY of this could be consistent with the physical universe I was brought up to understand and respect. A cosmos whose rules may not be fair by human standards -- making that happen is up to ussss -- but at least those rules are fair on the level of logic and common sense. 

"All this "magic" is what you'd expect from a much, much cheaper Creator."

"As you say, this is a wretched cliche! You are making all of this up, Potter."

“Am I? You can sense that I am sincerely trying to satisfy your last command to me in parseltongue! I am telling you the exact truth of the world, as I see it from my muggle training.  I am telling you this so you'll spare my parents! Thissss isss exactly how I sssee it!"

"But... but Atlantis and Merlin... "

"Yeah, sure. The simulation could be one of two things.  The first possibility is that those long ago Atlantis guys got some super good tech, like maybe we muggles think we'll have in a century or so, and they wrote all this magic stuff into the system, and people have been using it through "incantations" and silly ass arm motions for thousands of years. In fact, I was planning to go searching for the Big Atlantean computer, during some summer break. But that’s not the theory I now see as likely.

“Not as much as the second possibility.”

“Which is?”

“That Merlin and Atlantis are just back story!  For a game that only started a little while ago.  I think I know how to tell which of these to believe, you know."

"I believe neither! Still, despite myself, I am too fascinated to end this, Potter. Truly, you are Tom Riddle at his best."

"So you'd want to believe – that I’m a version of you. But it doesn’t work."

"Never mind that. Just get on with it, child. How can you tell which simulation we are in?"

"Simple, look at your behavior, Voldie.  Classic petty tyrant aiming to become feudal lord-of-all.  What propels you? Sure, fear of dying. A spectacular exaggeration of my own war against death. We shared that motive, though I never became an asshole about it."

Harry hurried on, as V raised his wand. "No, look at the rest of it, not just you but _all the dark lords, through time.  Ask yourself WHY ARE THERE STILL MUGGLES?”

“What?”

"Seriously, feudal tyrants were almost always propelled – deep down - by something fundamental that arose out of evolution – reproductive advantage. Animals – especially males – tend to try to dominate others in order to maximize offspring! Because that’s how the trait of will-to-dominate was passed down to them.

“Indeed, we’re all descended from the harems of guys who grabbed other mens’ women and wheat. Even when you’re sterile and couldn’t care less about procreation, that drive bubbles up in masked ways. Our recent, muggle-enlightenment society has tried – with some success – to break that old, nasty pattern. But look around you at Magical Britain!”

Careful to keep his wand hand still, Harry held up two fingers of his left hand.

“One, the will to dominate is un-attenuated in you, even exaggerated in volcanic displays of preening bluster. You are clearly an heir of the old drive. Dark lords all act like they want all the women and wheat!  And yet… do you see any increased number of offspring?  The present situation is insanely unlikely! Across 10,000 years, magic users would have had their way with muggle women right and left, till the Atlantean genes utterly dominated and there were no more muggles anymore!”

While Voldemort puzzled over this, Harry wondered, thinking furiously. Well? You found a way to distract him. So, while he's fascinated and arguing, is there anything else you can do, meanwhile? He left you holding your wand! The Death Eaters will strike if you lift it, but what about doing something subtle, some kind of transfiguration...

But no.  Voldemort never leaves anything to chance. After he made me take the vow, he could have said "Drop the wand, Potter," and I'd have no choice but to comply. He knows I'll try anything I can think of, and lots of possibilities present themselves...

...but remember how he tricked you into using that gun against him and thus canceling the Riddle Curse! This is more of the same.  He has wards of detection on your wand right now and simply wants to learn from whatever last gambit you'll try against him.

Harry shuddered briefly, envisioning Voldemort empowered with new tricks, say, able to send invisible fibers through an open window, decapitating any foe without warning. Or creating killer-ants out of dirt, or... any of the other clever tricks that Harry had thought-up, over the last year. Stuff that the dark lord must right now be waiting for Harry to teach him.

No, while you try to think of something else, you'd better concentrate on defeating him the best way... with rationality.

“Hah!  Now I have you!” Sneered Lord Voldemort. “ How do you know that’s not what I intend to do, as soon as I have power? Grab all the muggle women! Spreading my seed far and wide!”

Harry laughed. “Bullshit. Excuse my French, but you’ve never shown the slightest interest. You are as sexless as a ten year old. And do you forget that I saw this new body of yours?" Harry smirked but hurried on. "ALL of your efforts have been aimed at preserving one lame consciousness, never at the continuity of Nature, of Darwin, of life.”

“So now you are going all Dumbledore on us?”

“Not at all. I will always fight against death, but I am not a zero-sum fool. I may not have much sex drive, yet. Hey, I really am ten! But I know I’ll want both sex and family, someday. Kids and a posterity.  So who’s the cranky “little child” here Voldie. Me? Or thee?”

“I have been puzzling why you seem bent on provoking –“

“Your frail ego?”

The wand aimed at Harry’s face and he felt power build. But V then lowered it.

“While I ponder why you seem bent on provoking a more hurried death, let me point out that these imbeciles behind you do like sex.”

“Sure, perverted, stereotypical villain sex – cheap, sadistic, melodrama stuff. Now ask yourself how many offspring they have?

“Anyway, you are evading the point of why there are still muggles. And face it, you have no answer. Moreover, you know that’s just one item on a very, very long list, Lordy V.  I could lay out forty or so clues  – including huge ones like the Fermi Paradox and the Interdict of Merlin."

Harry shook his head. “Ah, I see from your face that you are putting it together. Maybe not so stupid, after all?  Yes, the only reason why I am not already dead for insulting your frail ego. Come on, Voldie. Say it. Say the reason why you are still listening to me, right now. Why you are feeling fear.”

“I feel no fear!”

“Then say it!  Say the words.”

Voldemort glared.

“Then I will. You’ve taken my reasoning in context of the PROPHECY that had you so worried, a few minutes ago.

“In fact,” Harry dared to take a step toward Voldemort. As he had expected, most of the Death Eaters were quivering, their wand arms drooping.  One of them emitted a sob. 

“In fact, now that you are putting it all together, you are starting to see how utterly useless and stupid your imposed vow was, as a way to get Harry Potter not to destroy the world.”

“I… no… it can’t be.”

“You know, at first I wondered. Could I be less important in this simulation than I appear to be? After all, characters in a truly advanced simulation would each be programmed to see themselves as vital dramatic players. And so I wondered –“  Harry glanced at the Death Eaters. “Your servants are looking really haggard, Voldie.  One of them may get an itchy trigger finger. I suggest--”

“Lower your wands!  But be ready to raise them at my command!”  All of the Death Eaters obeyed, though three of them sagged to the ground.

“I wondered,” Harry continued, “if the core protagonist might be you, Voldie.”

“Of course…” Voldemort swallowed, then lifted his head, greeting Harry’s gaze fiercely.  “It would have to be me!”

“Hm… normally I’d agree.  In real life, you may be a syphilitic, crotchety 90 year old Thomas Riddle, who dropped some quarters into a holodeck in the year 2050, in order to live the vicarious fantasy of a Dark Lord, before… or maybe after… senility claims him…”

Again, the fell wand aimed and Harry’s scar throbbed.

“Thisss isss real!  I remember everything!”

“Yeah, that Parseltongue thing. Can you really evade realizing what a clue that is?”

He went on, driven partly by anger but mostly by the joy of rationality.

“Anyway, I just said, characters remember what the simulation tells them to remember. Or are you saying that all the powers of Atlantis could not implant false memories in one such as you?”

A low gurgle escaped the mouth of the dark lord, each liquidy pop causing nearby stones to shake. Harry’s scar felt like it would burn through his skull, but he concentrated and managed to meet V’s gaze. Behind him, Death Eaters either collapsed or popped out of existence, fleeing.

Well?  Part of Harry's mind pushed forward.  Now is your chance to do something!  The Death Eaters are neutralized and Voldemort is distracted by rage, perhaps enough to ignore the wards on your wand.  Do something now!

But Harry shook his head slightly. If Voldemort saw all of this as a ploy to distract him, then his weak ego might use that as an excuse to ignore the logical corner he was being boxed-into. No. It must be rationality. All the way to the end.

“Well?  What’s staying your hand, Lordy V?  Could it be that prophecy, again?  It’s got you trapped, doesn’t it. If you kill me, there’s a chance that I am the protagonist! That you’ll stand crowing over the body of the Boy Who Lived, shouting victory… till you see great big letters spelling GAME OVER, shining across the sky. And if THAT is how ‘Harry Potter destroys the world,’ well then, the vow you made me take ain’t worth a bucket of spit. ."

Harry grinned. “I’ll still be the one who wakes up.”

Hate filled Voldemort’s eyes.

“It… would … sssseem… worth … the rissssk.”

Harry shrugged. “So much for the defeater of death. You realize that your horcruxes won’t mean a thing, then?

“And there’s this -- if I decide to play the game again, I’ll beware of all the tricks that worked for you this round! That is, if I don’t decide to move on, to another game. Something with better logic.”

“You are just guessing!”

“Yessssss… but sssincere.  This is a conclusion I was arriving at across the entire year.”

“I don’t have to kill you! I can put you in the worst torment imaginable, in a cell filled with boiling--”

“Really? You think the prophecy can't work its way around that? Do you imagine death is the only way to interrupt a simulation? True, you made me take a vow, or I’d right now be shouting “RESET!” at the top of my lungs. You fixed it so I can’t do that. But are you willing to bet it won’t end anyway, if I suffer enough? Or – even worse – if I ever get bored?”

He took another step toward the tall figure, and their height difference did not seem to matter.

“Frankly, Voldie, now that I’m seeing it all clearly, my boredom with your clichéd… silliness… would seem to be the worst danger you have ever faced.”

Harry knew then that it was time to stop talking. Seconds dripped past.

Finally, the Dark Lord said: “If not for the prophecy, I would have laughed at your blatant bluff, no matter how many 'clues' you have sincerely woven together!  The only effect would have been to get you dismembered more slowly.”

Harry responded with a shrug.  He backed away three paces, then looked around.  Five Death Eaters were left standing, though all of them swayed, as if barely holding on.  He turned and walked over to look at Hermione.

Lifting his wand took some effort, overcoming a leaden feeling from V’s threat. But he managed to brandish it properly and murmur: “Ennervate!”

Voldemort did not stop him.  Instead, the Dark Lord asked: “What is it that you want?”

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Okay, there you have it. And since writing this, I thought of several more reasons why Voldie would reluctantly conclude the GAME OVER scenario is how HP would "destroy the world." Certainly, obliviating Voildemort is not a fulfilling of the prophecy, since the seer-prophetess Trelwawny (?) would not interpret that as destroying the world, but saving it, exactly as HP saved it ten years earlier.

Drawbacks to my approach: there’s no action at all!  As a novelist, I accept that Eliezer’s published chapter 114 is far more satisfying!  Indeed, because of that, it is probably the correct choice!  There’s violence and tension and trickery and mayhem and loads and loads of magic!

… that seems contrived and does not follow the rules the author himself laid down. (Indeed, EY never answers the question of why V left HP in possession of his WAND! Or why, knowing HP is powerful, he would not put detection wards around HP's wand, to go off at the slightest use of magic.)  But never mind all that. As I said, his version is more dramatic and that matters in a cool story!  Screw "rationality!"  

Still, let's follow my reasoning in a thought experiment. Suppose he had chosen my version, then what would be the aftermath, starting in chapter 115?

Well, there’d be more talk. Harry’s leverage – while strong – is very narrow!  He would have to negotiate very carefully. There'd be four parties to any deal.  Magical Britain, Muggle Humanity, Voldemort and Harry... and all four want/need different things.

Leading to the Big Question for the ultimate rationalist -- Is there a positive sum outcome that all parties might agree-to?

Voldemort wants (1) to be absolutely guaranteed continued life and freedom of action. (2) for there to be no GAME OVER destruction of the world. (3) Excitement that comes from real challenge. (4) Other desires that HP sees as symptomatic of illness... lust for power and some sadism. (5) He will not willingly give up the Philosopher Stone. What Eliezer call’s Voldemort’s Utility Function.

Magical Britain wants (1) Dumbledore back, (2) Security from any more murder rampages by dark lords and their meddling with imperious spells. (3) A cleaning out, at last, of all Death Eaters. 

Muggle humanity wants (1) to continue developing safe from magical interference... though maybe (2) with some very carefully chosen interventions to help a bit. (3) A gradual easing of Magical Britain's combination of secrecy and stupidity.

Harry wants (1) goodness and joy and life and (2) some commitment to a reduction in death. (3) destruction of Azkaban and (4) rubbing Magical Britain's noses in how awful that was and how awful they have been. (5) to continue hunting down the truth about magic, and ... (6) Hermione.

In addition, Harry's vow now makes him as determined as Voldie is, not to get the GAME OVER destruction of the world.  Unless he can mentally envision that the bigger outer world is the one not to be destroyed, in which case the game won’t matter to his vow!  A project for another time and he keeps that possibility secret from V.

What he really wants is some challenges that will distract V long enough for the lunatic to be at least somewhat healed.  There are major possibilities, like searching together for the Atlanean Big Computer.  Or setting up a new academy to compete with Hogwarts.  Potter House versus Riddle House?

The overlap of all those desires should be possible, in a positive sum way.  There is a clever way to do it... if you ask!

It connects many earlier threads.

Hey, I do this for a living.

But enough of that.  It’s not my party, it’s Eliezer’s!!  And a fine one it is. And his climax works much better as FICTION!  As drama!   I am astonished by what he’s accomplished in this series.  And he’s a terrific writer.  And I am glad he will soon be writing stuff he can get paid for.

Still... Indeed, his commitment to "rationality" prompted me to fiddle with it for – well – more than an hour now.  And it is unimportant.  And it is done.

Back to the real novel now.  Carry on, Harry!