The OP framed the scenario in terms of directing the AI to design a FAI, but the technique is more general. It’s possibly safe for all problems with a verifiable solution.
PeterS
Karma: 371
Good idea. But this effectively makes failing to “go quietly” punishable by death.
In some attacks it’s okay to hold of on proposing solutions. In others, it’s not. Presumably, there actually are some bad people in Azkaban, and not just, say, people responsible for an accidental death. Before Harry destroys the prison, he needs to think carefully about what is to become of these people.
What’s required of a maximum security wizard prison? You clearly need to subdue any magical powers which would allow the prisoners to revolt or escape. At a minimum then, confiscate wands and put up anti-Disapparition charms. This might not be enough, as in canon it’s possible to perform magic without a wand. Voldemort was able to terrorize the other orphans by “hand-to-hand” magical means before he had even been introduced to wand-based magic! So what else can you do? You could Somnium prisoners for the duration of their sentence, but this seems both inhumane and ineffective as a means of punishment (if that’s actually a goal of imprisonment).
We don’t really know enough to say to what degree it’s possible to subdue a wizard’s magical powers without bringing in the Dementors. If Dementors are just a reification of the fear of death, perhaps you could terrorize the prisoners in some manner as to achieve a similar effect. This would be unacceptable from Harry’s point of view. In canon, we see that some people’s magical abilities diminish due to heartbreak (Tonks and possibly Tom Riddle’s mother). It might be possible to exploit this phenomenon somehow, but then again it could fail to work on psychopathic prisoners.
Given what we don’t know, it’s possible that all solutions to this problem are inhumane (i.e. the only way to suppress magical ability is by trauma). We don’t live in the HP:MoR universe, so we can’t do much research on the possibilities, but Harry should!
EDIT: The thought occurred that you could transfigure the prisoners into Muggles. Could be possible, but only for short periods of time (and may require at least a 1-1 ratio of guards to prisoners).
Transitivity? In The Lifespan Dilemma, Eliezer presents a sequence (L_n) in which we are convinced L_n { L_(n+1) throughout, but for which we’d prefer even L_0 to L_n for some large but finite n.
Chapters 55-58 seemed to me to contained very little content. At least not much that was fun/interesting. What content they had was superfluous and repetitive. The only real obstacle for Harry were the Dementors*, and he seemed to defeat them trivially. At the end of Ch. 54, suspense was high, but (at least from my perspective) it really fizzled out.
They’re finally out of there. Let us never speak of these chapters again!
Strong recursion: Software designs new software to design newer software; money begets money begets more money. Think of the foom as compound interest on intelligence.
Suppose A designs B, which then designs C. Why does it follow that C is more capable than B (logically, disregarding any hardware advances made between B and C)? Alternatively, why couldn’t A have designed C initially?
Oh… I in no way endorse the above argument! Pierre-Simon Laplace’s, a century or so after Newton, gave a naturalistic model of how the Solar System could have developed. “Rationality quotes” is not only about sharing words of wisdom, but also words of folly.
Numberplates?
Isaac Newton’s argument for intelligent design:
Were all the planets as swift as Mercury or as slow as Saturn or his satellites; or were the several velocities otherwise much greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the distances from the centers about which they move been greater or less than they are (as they might have been had they arose from any other cause than their gravities); or had the quantity of matter in the sun or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth (and by consequence their gravitating power) been greater or less than it is; the primary planets could not have revolved about the sun nor the secondary ones about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do, but would have moved in hyperbolas or parabolas or in ellipses very eccentric. To make this system, therefore, with all its motions, required a cause which understood and compared together the quantities of matter in the several bodies of the sun and planets and the gravitating powers resulting from thence.… And to compare and adjust all these things together in so great a variety of bodies, argues that cause to be, not blind and fortuitous, but very well skilled in mechanics and geometry.
-- Letter to Richard Bentley
Why does Quirrell want Harry exposed to Dementors?
At the risk of building this theory on top of another unconfirmed theory… It’s been speculated that Quirrell himself is Demented. He doesn’t appear so when Voldemort is telepathically controlling him, but when Voldy takes a cigarette break or whatever Quirrell enters zombie mode. Quirrell is just kind of an empty body, zombie-like unless Voldemort is logged in.
Maybe Voldemort wants to control Harry’s body in a similar fashion. What the difference is between dementing and then telepathically inhabiting, versus simply using the Imperius Curse… /shrug.
Rule I
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.
Rule II
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America; the light of our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in the planets.
Rule III
The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments; and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple, and always consonant to itself. . .
Rule IV
In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.
This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.
Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalis: Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy
Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis by Paul Cohen is good, and starts from a pretty low level if I recall, but you’ll want experience in formal reasoning before reading through it. Do you have any experience with formal math?
As Poincaré said, “Every definition implies an axiom, since it asserts the existence of the object defined.” You can call a value a “single criterion that doesn’t tolerate exceptions and status quo assumptions”—but it’s not clear to me that I even have values, in that sense.
Of course, I will believe in the invisible, provided that it is implied. But why is it, in this case?
You also speak of the irrelevance (in this context) of the fact that these values might not even be feasibly computable. Or, even if we can identify them, there may be no feasible way to preserve them. But you’re talking about moral significance. Maybe we differ, but to me there is no moral significance attached to the destruction of an uncomputable preference by a course of events that I can’t control.
It might be sad/horrible to live to see such days (if only by definition—as above, if one can’t compute their top-node values then it’s possible that one can’t compute how horrible it would be), as you say. It also might not. Although I can’t speak personally for the values of a Stoic, they might be happy to… well, be happy.
Wow… I had imagined that Moody lost his eye in a fight or something—but it would be way more awesome if he cut it out intentionally, to replace it with an eye more suited for the hunt.
Chapter 51 (emphasis added):
As Professor Quirrell stood up from where he’d bent over by the pouch, and put away his wand, his wand happened to point in Harry’s direction, and there was a brief crawling sensation on Harry’s chest near where the Time-Turner lay, like something creepy had passed very close by without touching him.
Chapter 54:
“Sorry,” whispered the eleven-year-old boy, “here,” and he held out the wand toward Bahry.
Bahry barely stopped himself from snarling at the traumatized boy who’d just saved his life. Instead he overrode the impulse with a sigh, and just stretched out a hand to take the wand. “Look, son, you’re really not supposed to point a wand at—”
The wand’s end twisted lightly beneath Bahry’s hand just as the boy whispered, “Somnium.”
Seems to indicate that Quirrell casted some kind of spell on Harry at that point in Chapter 51.
Anyone have any ideas as to what this is about?
Slowly, slowly, as Professor Quirrell had instructed, the pouch began to float toward Harry, who waited alert for any sign the pouch was opening, in which case Harry was to use the Hover Charm to propel it away from him as fast as possible.
Why does he need to float the pouch about at all? Why not just pick it up?
Moody’s eye can see through the Invisibility Cloak.
Hmm.. it seems clear that the “sense of doom” is important. Possibly even an indicator that one is being imperius’d—if these theories are correct.
Under a certain reading Quirrell actually did get him to stop.
“My lord! You must stop it!” … “Please, my Lord!”
The words went unheard.
They were far from him, the Dementors in their pit, but Harry knew that they could be destroyed even at this distance if the light blazed bright enough, he knew that Death itself could not face him if he stopped holding back, so he unsealed all the gates inside him and sank the wells of his spell into all the deepest parts of his spirit, all his mind and all his will, and gave over absolutely everything to the spell -
And in the interior of the Sun, an only slightly dimmer shadow moved forward, reaching out an entreating hand.
WRONG DON’T
The sudden sense of doom clashed with Harry’s steel determination, dread and uncertainty striving against the bright purpose, nothing else might have reached him but that.
If you had been watching from outside you would have seen the interior of the Sun brightening and dimming...
Brightening and dimming...
...and finally fading, fading, fading into ordinary moonlight that seemed like pitch darkness by contrast.
Within the darkness of that moonlight stood a sallow man with his hand outstretched in entreaty, and the skeleton of a woman, lying upon the floor, a puzzled look upon her face.
Where is that “WRONG. DONT.” coming from? Harry’s inner dialogue or Quirrell? Note that the sense of doom has been associated with Quirrell’s proximity since the start of the mission, and the “man reaching out in entreaty” is Quirrell. So maybe it actually only was by Quirrell’s influence that Harry was able to stop.
Anyway, I think the bit about them not being able to cast spells on each other (which is true-ish in canon) is a stronger argument. But other have pointed out how unusual it is that Harry would go along with any of this unless he was either being imperiused or mind-fucked by Quirrell.
Can the question given in this post be formulated precisely?
If so, nix everything but the precise description of the answer-box’s behavior and ask for a program which simulates such a device.
If not, … then I choose to interpret it in such a way that I can ask for the above anyway.