I guess it could work either way. I mean, Nagini could be obeying Voldemort by virtue of being a well-trained pet, the Basilisk for… whatever reasons the Basilisk does anything for, and Malfoy’s summoned snake might listen to Harry because it’s inclined to grant random non-difficult favors when asked. None of those seem any less probable than snakes winking, talking, having theory of mind, speaking in ridiculous hisses or knowing Spanish. In fact, none of the snakes in this series seem like snakes at all, so I’m not sure what my priors are regarding them.
AspiringKnitter
Karma: 955
Parseltongue speakers don’t just talk with snakes, they command them.
Do they really? The boa constrictor seemed pretty interested in its own stuff, Nagini is a pet and pets in general are obedient, Harry didn’t command the Basilisk… so is this actually canon? Admittedly, maybe I just missed something, but I don’t remember this.
Ah. It’s math.
:) Thanks.
Wow. That’s really cool, thank you. Upvoted you, jeremysalwen and Nornagest. :)
Could you also explain why the HPMoR universe isn’t Turing computable? The time-travel involved seems simple enough to me.
Thanks. :)
If this weren’t Less Wrong, I’d just slink away now and pretend I never saw this, but:
I don’t understand this comment, but it sounds important. Where can I go and what can I read that will cause me to understand statements like this in the future?
Is there a new thread yet? If so, why can’t I find it?
this should mean that humans raised in cultural and social vacuums ought to be disproportionately talented at everything
And yet, they’re actually worse at many cognitive tasks. Language, especially, is pretty hard for them to pick up after a certain point.
What if the problem isn’t that it’s too cognitively taxing, but that, applied in the sloppy way most people apply their heuristics, it could lead to irrational choices or selfish behavior?
Does it have kuru? I’m only open to eating healthy human flesh in this scenario.
Also, if it poofs into existence from nowhere, is it creating matter out of nothing? It’s creating something that still has usable energy in it, out of nothing? That could not only end world hunger and veganism, you might be able to use the newly-created corpses for fuel in some kind of power plant. Sure, you might have to go back to steam power to make it work, and sure, human bodies might not be the optimal fuel source, but if you’re getting them from nowhere, that solves all our energy woes.
It also might make the planet gain mass, eventually, if you did enough of it for long enough. Hmm. Oh, well, you can use that to make spacecraft. Maybe. Or something.
That and blood pudding. And fertilizer.
I think actually, being able to poof human corpses into existence would be an improvement over the current state of affairs. It might still be sub-optimal, but it would be better.
Now I want to be able to poof human corpses into existence from nowhere. I also think maybe I should start a list of things I’ve said that I wouldn’t have been able to predict that I would say if asked the day before.
Doesn’t that rely on everyone eating candy? One person who doesn’t eat candy and therefore isn’t invested in the outcome could wreck that.
Also: theoretically, a student could win hundreds of pieces of candy? I’m sure the parents were very happy about that.
Hmm. That could be a good point. If the world were ending, I probably wouldn’t waste time on a sit-down meal.
How about if it’s your last day in the country and you’ll be fleeing to escape religious persecution tomorrow, taking nothing with you?
Couldn’t the problems others have brought up regarding this scenario be fixed by specifying that this is your last meal ever before the world ends tomorrow morning before breakfast? Then neither information nor money is valuable anymore.
I think you should go with Vaniver’s idea. (Edit: Vaniver now has multiple ideas up. I mean the one about giving orders to malicious idiots. Completely off-topic: that’s also a useful way to explain tasks to people with Asperger’s Syndrome or other neurological oddities that cause executive dysfunction.)
I also think this reminds me of something (fiction) writers talk about a lot: they’ve hit on the way people won’t sympathize with “a billion people died/starved/were tortured/experienced dust specks in their eyes” but will sympathize with “Alice was mobbed by dust specks and blinded” and will sympathize even better if you give some specific details about how it felt. And then they go on to talk about how to make Alice someone the reader cares about and how to craft sentences and other stuff that’s relevant to them but irrelevant here.
But maybe something like making up a character and talking someone through xyr experience using the product step by step, in the kind of detail a novelist would use to describe the climactic fight scene.
Another idea that occurred to me is some sort of exercise where two people would pair up. One would have to do a novel task or navigate some kind of obstacle course blindfolded and the other would have to give directions. They wouldn’t be able to get away with “turn right at the statue” but would instead have to give directions like “turn right at the big smooth stone thing” and… I guess if you were doing something like that, you’d want to give the non-blindfolded partner a picture or map and NOT let them see the one doing the actual task. Otherwise they’d just be able to say “okay, turn right now… turn left… turn left again...” and that would defeat the purpose.
Don’t they usually say it about situations that they could choose to change, to people who don’t have the choice?
Lesson learned: actually read the citations.
I never even had a chance; it was March when I read it. :/ Guess I’ll remove my downvote.
You know, that is a really good idea.
I agree, this is a bad idea. I didn’t figure out the answer when it was just for fun; my performance will probably only get worse under stress (and there’s not much farther to fall from “uh… well, maybe it has to do with destroying Dementors, I give up”).
I know this shows no confidence in my own rationality, or that of the other readers, but can we please just have a normal story?
...Doesn’t everyone already believe #4?