Actually this is a fallacy I’ve seen coming up a lot in discussions of the fic. People are so enchanted with being able to come up with many possibilities that they forget to ask which are the probable possibilities. Sure, the laws change somewhat when you’re matching wits with an author instead of reality; but when it comes to people talking about lots of other possible explanations for the Mendelian pattern in wizard genetics, for example, they seem to be doing a Culture of Objections thing where they declare victory as soon as they come up with an overlooked possibility that can be used to reject the paper, never mind the prior probability on it.
I’ve seen this answer gotten, so I know it’s gettable.
Do what? Confidently name the “official” hypothesis, guess teacher’s password? There certainly are good hypotheses, possibly one hypothesis significantly better than any other, which makes the probability of privileging the one you had in mind non-trivial and thus explains your observations. It doesn’t follow that it’s correct to assign high level of certainty to that hypothesis (as a within-world event, not prediction about what you had in mind, as the latter would be biased towards the best guess and away from the long tail).
(My best guess in this particular case is “enable time turners (in some sense)”, but I won’t be confident it’s indeed so, it could be something else. ETA: On reflection, “revealing if someone is already in the room” is a better guess, although one could sidestep the defenses by entering from the future as well as from the past, and so not be present at the time of the casting.)
Seconding Nesov’s point. If you ask people to guess the number you have in mind, and someone says “three” (while others say “one” or “five” or “a hundred”), and you did in fact have in mind “three”, that doesn’t prove the answer is “gettable”. Not saying that it isn’t in fact gettable, only that you need a stricter test. For example, sometimes ask someone else to post a comment with the correct answer (or do it yourself using an alias) and see how it fares compared to other hypotheses.
I assume that it’s been suggested before but . . . . may I suggest (cast a vote) that you spend a bit more effort to advertise HP&tMoR in more places? It’s awesomely accessible (especially when considered in comparison to virtually anything else with close to the explanatory power) and an awful lot of fun to boot. (Actually, I should be suggesting that everyone here who likes it should make an effort to advertise it to all their friends. It certainly should have far, far more than 578 people who Like it on Facebook.).
As far as I can tell, the likeliest (i.e., simplest IMO) in-world hypothesis is that Azkhaban already has lots of wards on it, and one of the “standard” ones was not necessary because of that.
ConservationOfDetail suggests that’s not the case, but I don’t quite see how we can deduce what you’re trying to do, especially keeping in mind that authors can do the same deductions we do and like to twist things by just picking a less-likely hypothesis and explain it after the fact (or just make the dice fall that way).
Oh, you’re right. I got confused about which chapter we were discussing, sorry about that.
That said, something similar applies here: Quirell did 29 charms in Mary’s room, and 30 outside of it. A very simple hypothesis would be that the 30th was something already “implemented” in Mary’s room. (In fact, given that Mary’s room is described as particularly safe even before the charms, the surprising thing is he didn’t do significantly more than 30 charms outside it. The uniqueness of Mary’s room suggests that it would be hard to duplicate it, but it seems strange that nothing could be done to at least approximate it.)
Saw someone else do it already.
Actually this is a fallacy I’ve seen coming up a lot in discussions of the fic. People are so enchanted with being able to come up with many possibilities that they forget to ask which are the probable possibilities. Sure, the laws change somewhat when you’re matching wits with an author instead of reality; but when it comes to people talking about lots of other possible explanations for the Mendelian pattern in wizard genetics, for example, they seem to be doing a Culture of Objections thing where they declare victory as soon as they come up with an overlooked possibility that can be used to reject the paper, never mind the prior probability on it.
I’ve seen this answer gotten, so I know it’s gettable.
Do what? Confidently name the “official” hypothesis, guess teacher’s password? There certainly are good hypotheses, possibly one hypothesis significantly better than any other, which makes the probability of privileging the one you had in mind non-trivial and thus explains your observations. It doesn’t follow that it’s correct to assign high level of certainty to that hypothesis (as a within-world event, not prediction about what you had in mind, as the latter would be biased towards the best guess and away from the long tail).
(My best guess in this particular case is “enable time turners (in some sense)”, but I won’t be confident it’s indeed so, it could be something else. ETA: On reflection, “revealing if someone is already in the room” is a better guess, although one could sidestep the defenses by entering from the future as well as from the past, and so not be present at the time of the casting.)
Seconding Nesov’s point. If you ask people to guess the number you have in mind, and someone says “three” (while others say “one” or “five” or “a hundred”), and you did in fact have in mind “three”, that doesn’t prove the answer is “gettable”. Not saying that it isn’t in fact gettable, only that you need a stricter test. For example, sometimes ask someone else to post a comment with the correct answer (or do it yourself using an alias) and see how it fares compared to other hypotheses.
I assume that it’s been suggested before but . . . . may I suggest (cast a vote) that you spend a bit more effort to advertise HP&tMoR in more places? It’s awesomely accessible (especially when considered in comparison to virtually anything else with close to the explanatory power) and an awful lot of fun to boot. (Actually, I should be suggesting that everyone here who likes it should make an effort to advertise it to all their friends. It certainly should have far, far more than 578 people who Like it on Facebook.).
Fanfiction is low status. Signaling considerations keep me from doing this with anyone associated with my offline identity.
Sad, but true.
I’ve found integrating the two identities to be a very pleasant experience. A great cognitive dissonance reducer.
As far as I can tell, the likeliest (i.e., simplest IMO) in-world hypothesis is that Azkhaban already has lots of wards on it, and one of the “standard” ones was not necessary because of that.
ConservationOfDetail suggests that’s not the case, but I don’t quite see how we can deduce what you’re trying to do, especially keeping in mind that authors can do the same deductions we do and like to twist things by just picking a less-likely hypothesis and explain it after the fact (or just make the dice fall that way).
They’re not in Azkaban at the time; this is the discussion in Mary’s Room.
Oh, you’re right. I got confused about which chapter we were discussing, sorry about that.
That said, something similar applies here: Quirell did 29 charms in Mary’s room, and 30 outside of it. A very simple hypothesis would be that the 30th was something already “implemented” in Mary’s room. (In fact, given that Mary’s room is described as particularly safe even before the charms, the surprising thing is he didn’t do significantly more than 30 charms outside it. The uniqueness of Mary’s room suggests that it would be hard to duplicate it, but it seems strange that nothing could be done to at least approximate it.)
But didn’t he do all 30 charms on a previous visit to Mary’s room?
There are too many chapters now for me to track this down easily.