It may be best to hand over the time turner but you do so after having a chance to think it through. Time turner. Plan. Decide that it is better to hand over the device for now. Write your analysis down. Give it to yourself at the appropriate time. (And give it to yourself again to make the loop stable.)
You seem to misunderstand how the time-turner works (or at least, how it’s been suggested it works). You don’t get to overwrite anything; the universe doesn’t “end up in” a stable state that results from using it; there isn’t any meta-time (or at least, we’ve seen nothing to suggest such). If he were going to use the time turner to give himself advice, he would have already gotten the advice. And having used the time-turner right there and visibly, he couldn’t use it “later not use it there” and have his going back in time undetectable.
A possible way he could use the time turner to help himself in this case would be to ask to go to the bathroom or somesuch, use the time turner, use the extra time to think, and then return to the room shortly after he left having thought about things.
(Edit: But this would be pretty obvious, and McGonagall probably wouldn’t let him leave the room with the time turner in any case.)
You seem to misunderstand how the time-turner works (or at least, how it’s been suggested it works). You don’t get to overwrite anything; the universe doesn’t “end up in” a stable state that results from using it
My interpretation of the “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” incident was that you can try setting things up so that temporal consistency implies the result you want, but actually ruling out every other possibility whatever, including vast classes of outcomes you never even imagined, is next to impossible, at least for an 11-year-old boy, however smart. It hadn’t even occurred to him that there was a problem in his reasoning when he tried the experiment that gave him “the scariest result ever in the history of science”. Temporal consistency in the presence of time loops is another blind idiot god, far more swift and powerful than evolution.
Anyway, he still has the Time-Turner. All that stands between him and it is a magical lock. How difficult can that be for him to get around? No, actually what stands between him and it is the author’s necessity not to unbalance the plot by giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Harry’s error in the experiment was responding to “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” with the same. If he didn’t have the property of responding to that message with the same, that message wouldn’t appear.
Actually, this whole consistency-based time travel seems to be an extremely expressive thought experiment infrastructure for thinking about Newcomb-like problems and decision theories able to deal with them. Maybe I should do a top-level post on that (I don’t have a sufficiently clear picture of the setting, so I might be wrong about its potential)… Though I consider that happening unlikely, so other people who understand UDT are welcome to try.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. After getting my head around the implications it seems to be an extremely intuitive way of handling such problems. I didn’t write a post myself since I have yet to look close enough at UDT to be able to explain the difference between UDT and TDT.
My interpretation of the “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” incident was that you can try setting things up so that temporal consistency implies the result you want, but actually ruling out every other possibility whatever, including vast classes of outcomes you never even imagined, is next to impossible, at least for an 11-year-old boy, however smart. It hadn’t even occurred to him that there was a problem in his reasoning when he tried the experiment that gave him “the scariest result ever in the history of science”. Temporal consistency in the presence of time loops is another blind idiot god, far more swift and powerful than evolution.
I think you summed that up perfectly. I would have liked to see a little more of that explanation in the Fan Fic. It would make the story feel more natural and also be a perfect excuse to include the ‘blind idiot god’ kind of message.
Anyway, he still has the Time-Turner. All that stands between him and it is a magical lock. How difficult can that be for him to get around?
Without Hermione backing him up? I think he’d struggle. Harry just isn’t that smart! He really should be spending more time sweet talking her. Well intentioned genius with ambition that doesn’t involve gaining power… just the kind of ally Harry needs.
No, actually what stands between him and it is the author’s necessity not to unbalance the plot by giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Uh huh. It’s even worse than if Harry had actually gone and made himself rich on day 1!
You seem to misunderstand how the time-turner works (or at least, how it’s been suggested it works). You don’t get to overwrite anything; the universe doesn’t “end up in” a stable state that results from using it; there isn’t any meta-time (or at least, we’ve seen nothing to suggest such). If he were going to use the time turner to give himself advice, he would have already gotten the advice. And having used the time-turner right there and visibly, he couldn’t use it “later not use it there” and have his going back in time undetectable.
A possible way he could use the time turner to help himself in this case would be to ask to go to the bathroom or somesuch, use the time turner, use the extra time to think, and then return to the room shortly after he left having thought about things.
(Edit: But this would be pretty obvious, and McGonagall probably wouldn’t let him leave the room with the time turner in any case.)
My interpretation of the “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” incident was that you can try setting things up so that temporal consistency implies the result you want, but actually ruling out every other possibility whatever, including vast classes of outcomes you never even imagined, is next to impossible, at least for an 11-year-old boy, however smart. It hadn’t even occurred to him that there was a problem in his reasoning when he tried the experiment that gave him “the scariest result ever in the history of science”. Temporal consistency in the presence of time loops is another blind idiot god, far more swift and powerful than evolution.
Anyway, he still has the Time-Turner. All that stands between him and it is a magical lock. How difficult can that be for him to get around? No, actually what stands between him and it is the author’s necessity not to unbalance the plot by giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Harry’s error in the experiment was responding to “DO NOT MESS WITH TIME” with the same. If he didn’t have the property of responding to that message with the same, that message wouldn’t appear.
Actually, this whole consistency-based time travel seems to be an extremely expressive thought experiment infrastructure for thinking about Newcomb-like problems and decision theories able to deal with them. Maybe I should do a top-level post on that (I don’t have a sufficiently clear picture of the setting, so I might be wrong about its potential)… Though I consider that happening unlikely, so other people who understand UDT are welcome to try.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. After getting my head around the implications it seems to be an extremely intuitive way of handling such problems. I didn’t write a post myself since I have yet to look close enough at UDT to be able to explain the difference between UDT and TDT.
I think you summed that up perfectly. I would have liked to see a little more of that explanation in the Fan Fic. It would make the story feel more natural and also be a perfect excuse to include the ‘blind idiot god’ kind of message.
Without Hermione backing him up? I think he’d struggle. Harry just isn’t that smart! He really should be spending more time sweet talking her. Well intentioned genius with ambition that doesn’t involve gaining power… just the kind of ally Harry needs.
Uh huh. It’s even worse than if Harry had actually gone and made himself rich on day 1!
He has been rich since day 1, it just that all his money is tied up in a variety of non-liquid “investments.”
I should say “insanely rich”, not merely ‘well off heir’.