My interpretation of your Gears-ness tracks well with the degree to which prior beliefs are interrelated.
Yep, that seems right to me. I’m a bit bugged by (my and maybe your) lack of Gears around what’s meant by “interrelated”, but yeah, this matches my impressions. I like the explicit connection to priors.
His brain ought to have been flushing its entire current stock of hypotheses about the universe, none of which allowed this to happen. But instead his brain just seemed to be going, All right, I saw the Hogwarts Professor wave her wand and make your father rise into the air, now what?
The witch-lady was smiling benevolently upon them, looking quite amused. “Would you like a further demonstration, Mr. Potter?”
“You don’t have to,” Harry said. “We’ve performed a definitive experiment. But...” Harry hesitated. He couldn’t help himself. Actually, under the circumstances, he shouldn’t be helping himself. It was right and proper to be curious. “What else can you do?”
Professor McGonagall turned into a cat.
Harry scrambled back unthinkingly, backpedalling so fast that he tripped over a stray stack of books and landed hard on his bottom with a thwack. His hands came down to catch himself without quite reaching properly, and there was a warning twinge in his shoulder as the weight came down unbraced.
Yep, that seems right to me. I’m a bit bugged by (my and maybe your) lack of Gears around what’s meant by “interrelated”, but yeah, this matches my impressions. I like the explicit connection to priors.
I’m reminded of this from HPMOR chapter 2: