If something totally crazy seemed like it was about to happen and the world was at stake, like a technological singularity was about to occur or something, and I was called to work for the team of great minds that were trying their hardest to stop the destruction of the entire universe, dropping out of high school in the process, and meeting a beautiful girl who had been living literally a few houses down from me for the last 4 years without my knowing about it, who just so happened to be doing an essay on transhumanism for her English class and would just love to interview someone who was doing work for the Singularity Institute.
The events in a story fit into a narrative. If I were in a story, I might be able to make especially accurate predictions by privileging hypotheses that make narrative sense. Dumbledore did this on an intuitive level, and it is the reason for his success.
Then again, if your predictions are part of the narrative, the narrative might go on to explicitly falsify your predictions. And if you except it to falsify your predictions… well, two can play that game.
I’m not sure, considering the number of different kinds of story there are even in our world, and especially considering that entities which could create our world will probably have sorts of fiction we haven’t thought of, and may have sorts of fiction we can’t think of.
However, Eliezer may come up with something which would plausibly convince Harry.
Or if Harry figures out that he’s in a story.
What kind of evidence would convince you that you were in a story?
If something totally crazy seemed like it was about to happen and the world was at stake, like a technological singularity was about to occur or something, and I was called to work for the team of great minds that were trying their hardest to stop the destruction of the entire universe, dropping out of high school in the process, and meeting a beautiful girl who had been living literally a few houses down from me for the last 4 years without my knowing about it, who just so happened to be doing an essay on transhumanism for her English class and would just love to interview someone who was doing work for the Singularity Institute.
Oh wait...
The events in a story fit into a narrative. If I were in a story, I might be able to make especially accurate predictions by privileging hypotheses that make narrative sense. Dumbledore did this on an intuitive level, and it is the reason for his success.
This is basically an attempt to formalize genre savviness.
And of course, if you really were in a story and tried it, story logic dictates that you would almost certainly end up being wrong genre savvy
Then again, if your predictions are part of the narrative, the narrative might go on to explicitly falsify your predictions. And if you except it to falsify your predictions… well, two can play that game.
If I started hearing the narrator’s voice
Talking animals
Beanstalks of unusual size
A pair of boxes, one containing $1000 …
Black comedy
Poetic justice
People living happily ever after.
I’m not sure, considering the number of different kinds of story there are even in our world, and especially considering that entities which could create our world will probably have sorts of fiction we haven’t thought of, and may have sorts of fiction we can’t think of.
However, Eliezer may come up with something which would plausibly convince Harry.