In retrospect, our guesswork was a lot messier than it should have been.
Chapter 25:
One set of problem-solving groups had been given the instruction “Do not propose solutions until the problem has been discussed as thoroughly as possible without suggesting any.”
The other set of problem-solving groups had been given no instructions. And those people had done the natural thing, and reacted to the presence of a problem by proposing solutions. And people had gotten attached to those solutions, and started fighting about them, and arguing about the relative importance of freedom versus efficiency and so on.
and
Starting out by looking for solutions was taking things entirely out of order. Like starting a meal with dessert, only bad.
While Less Wrong discussants are usually prone to less fighting and arguing than the norm, they are not prone to being inefficient.
What we should have done was forbade any and all solutions until two days after the chapter was released. We had five full days to guess, we didn’t need to have all our solutions down the first twenty-four hours. Not to mention that instead of simpler solutions, we continued to look for answers more complex than the ones already proposed after we thought we already cleared the low-hanging fruit.
While some people have made an attempt to analyze first, listing everything in the room, things that only Harry knows, et cetera, the majority of us just proposed solutions right away. This was probably not what Mr. Yudkowsky wanted.
Word of God:
One thing I did notice was that many readers (a) neglected simple solutions in favor of complex ones, (b) neglected obvious solutions in favor of nonobvious ones, and (c) suggested that the correct hints had been put there for deliberately deceptive purposes.
...which in my mind I parsed as keep it simple, stupid, and you all were looking in the wrong direction and why the hell are you all proposing one preposterous idea after another, are you trying to look intelligent or something.
My only conclusion after reading that was that if we drew a map first we probably would of found the more probable solutions a lot quicker. Also reading through 1.5k+ comments full of solutions was headache-inducing.
Personally, I thought the problem through and did, literally, draw a map of the room with its people and creatures, before coming on here, and yet I will own up to having not come up with anything at all and not even figured out which of the solutions proposed by others seemed most plausible.
The clue about seeing the Wizengamot as PCs rather than wallpaper rather fizzled out. They still look a lot like wallpaper, and only Lucius and Dumbledore look like PCs. Though Dumbledore has developed a sudden unexpected malware infection and Lucius is just weird.
What the hell is up with Dumbledore’s preference system?? He prefers Hermione (a probable innocent) going to Azkaban above Harry going into debt, and prefers that in turn over Harry destroying Azkaban and every last Dementor. What is Fawkes doing sitting on his shoulder? Hitting him with a wing… No. Should be pecking his eyes out.
And then, what is up with Lucius? After going on so strong about why he would never trade his son’s blood debt for money (yep, taboo trade off) he then… trades the blood debt for money! Huh?
OK, there’s the phoney blood-debt to House Potter in the mix somewhere, but he knows it’s phoney, and didn’t have to accept it. If he were serious about his son’s life as a sacred value, then he wouldn’t.
The only theory I have is that Lucius knows full well now that Hermione didn’t do it. (Harry handed him the idiot ball, he quickly got the point, and updated, though of course couldn’t admit to that in front of everyone). So there is no longer a taboo in swapping one phoney debt for another; it’s now all about mundane values like political advantage, personal prejudice (sticking it to the Mudblood), trying to embarrass Dumbledore and Boy-Who-Lived with impossible proposals, the off-chance of more gold to add to his pile; all tempered with confusion about whether the Dark Lord is really reborn, what he really wants out of the Mudblood, and why isn’t he being let in on the new master-plan?? Truly a vile little worm.
I agree; Lucius knows Hermione is innocent (not that she didn’t do it) and the clue about the Wizengamot fizzled out.
However, I think Dumbledore’s preferred outcomes here seem to be the smallest disturbances of the status quo. (Fawkes needs to give him a few more thwacks.) Hermione going to Azkaban disturbs things less than Harry going into debt disturbs things less than Harry destroying Azkaban. So at least there does seem to be a consistent utility function here. (The other, highly improbable, explanation for that preference ranking is that he approves of dementors feeding on innocents in general.)
I think Lucius is mostly grandstanding, just saying whatever will make him seem most like a formidable politician and least like he’s backing down.
One thing I did notice was that many readers (a) neglected simple solutions in favor of complex ones, (b) neglected obvious solutions in favor of nonobvious ones, and (c) suggested that the correct hints had been put there for deliberately deceptive purposes.
That’s a version of publication bias. If a solution is very simple and if the hints are interpreted in the most obvious ways, then it seems like not worth publishing. :D
How do you propose organizing a ‘master list’ of solutions, relevant plot pieces, etc. given the current forum format? Some people have made some lists, but they are often quickly buried beneath other comments. I’m also not familiar enough with how things work to know if a post can be edited days after it has been posted. One obvious solution is that a HPMOR reader who likes making webpages puts up wiki page for this. Can this be done on Lesswrong.com?
If we held off proposing solutions the first two days of analysis wouldn’t get buried down in the first place. And to answer your question, forum posts can be edited, and the date posted is marked with an asterisk if it was. A wiki sounds sensible but it might be a little too complex for those who are unfamiliar with it, not to mention there’d be tons of editing conflicts going on. I propose Google Docs, for its real-time collaboration, or any other similar alternative. Etherpad?
In retrospect, our guesswork was a lot messier than it should have been.
Chapter 25:
and
While Less Wrong discussants are usually prone to less fighting and arguing than the norm, they are not prone to being inefficient.
What we should have done was forbade any and all solutions until two days after the chapter was released. We had five full days to guess, we didn’t need to have all our solutions down the first twenty-four hours. Not to mention that instead of simpler solutions, we continued to look for answers more complex than the ones already proposed after we thought we already cleared the low-hanging fruit.
While some people have made an attempt to analyze first, listing everything in the room, things that only Harry knows, et cetera, the majority of us just proposed solutions right away. This was probably not what Mr. Yudkowsky wanted.
Word of God:
...which in my mind I parsed as keep it simple, stupid, and you all were looking in the wrong direction and why the hell are you all proposing one preposterous idea after another, are you trying to look intelligent or something.
My only conclusion after reading that was that if we drew a map first we probably would of found the more probable solutions a lot quicker. Also reading through 1.5k+ comments full of solutions was headache-inducing.
Personally, I thought the problem through and did, literally, draw a map of the room with its people and creatures, before coming on here, and yet I will own up to having not come up with anything at all and not even figured out which of the solutions proposed by others seemed most plausible.
Couple of things:
The clue about seeing the Wizengamot as PCs rather than wallpaper rather fizzled out. They still look a lot like wallpaper, and only Lucius and Dumbledore look like PCs. Though Dumbledore has developed a sudden unexpected malware infection and Lucius is just weird.
What the hell is up with Dumbledore’s preference system?? He prefers Hermione (a probable innocent) going to Azkaban above Harry going into debt, and prefers that in turn over Harry destroying Azkaban and every last Dementor. What is Fawkes doing sitting on his shoulder? Hitting him with a wing… No. Should be pecking his eyes out.
And then, what is up with Lucius? After going on so strong about why he would never trade his son’s blood debt for money (yep, taboo trade off) he then… trades the blood debt for money! Huh?
OK, there’s the phoney blood-debt to House Potter in the mix somewhere, but he knows it’s phoney, and didn’t have to accept it. If he were serious about his son’s life as a sacred value, then he wouldn’t.
The only theory I have is that Lucius knows full well now that Hermione didn’t do it. (Harry handed him the idiot ball, he quickly got the point, and updated, though of course couldn’t admit to that in front of everyone). So there is no longer a taboo in swapping one phoney debt for another; it’s now all about mundane values like political advantage, personal prejudice (sticking it to the Mudblood), trying to embarrass Dumbledore and Boy-Who-Lived with impossible proposals, the off-chance of more gold to add to his pile; all tempered with confusion about whether the Dark Lord is really reborn, what he really wants out of the Mudblood, and why isn’t he being let in on the new master-plan?? Truly a vile little worm.
I agree; Lucius knows Hermione is innocent (not that she didn’t do it) and the clue about the Wizengamot fizzled out.
However, I think Dumbledore’s preferred outcomes here seem to be the smallest disturbances of the status quo. (Fawkes needs to give him a few more thwacks.) Hermione going to Azkaban disturbs things less than Harry going into debt disturbs things less than Harry destroying Azkaban. So at least there does seem to be a consistent utility function here. (The other, highly improbable, explanation for that preference ranking is that he approves of dementors feeding on innocents in general.)
I think Lucius is mostly grandstanding, just saying whatever will make him seem most like a formidable politician and least like he’s backing down.
That’s a version of publication bias. If a solution is very simple and if the hints are interpreted in the most obvious ways, then it seems like not worth publishing. :D
How do you propose organizing a ‘master list’ of solutions, relevant plot pieces, etc. given the current forum format? Some people have made some lists, but they are often quickly buried beneath other comments. I’m also not familiar enough with how things work to know if a post can be edited days after it has been posted. One obvious solution is that a HPMOR reader who likes making webpages puts up wiki page for this. Can this be done on Lesswrong.com?
If we held off proposing solutions the first two days of analysis wouldn’t get buried down in the first place. And to answer your question, forum posts can be edited, and the date posted is marked with an asterisk if it was. A wiki sounds sensible but it might be a little too complex for those who are unfamiliar with it, not to mention there’d be tons of editing conflicts going on. I propose Google Docs, for its real-time collaboration, or any other similar alternative. Etherpad?