Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Wrong, Less and Yudkowsky, Eliezer (2010), Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Retrieved on 2013-04-08Source Material [hpmor.com]
Folksonomies: science humor satire fan fiction Memes
08 APR 2013
Wizardry Violates the Conservation of Energy
“You turned into a cat! A small cat! You violated Conservation of
Energy! That’s not just an arbitrary rule, it’s implied by the form of
the quantum Hamiltonian! Rejecting it destroys unitarity and then you
get ftl signaling! And cats are complicated! A human mind can’t just
visualize a whole cat’s anatomy and, and all the cat biochemistry, and
what about the neurology? How can you go on thinking using a catsized
brain?”
McGonagall’s lips were twitching harder now. “Magic.”
“Magic isn’t eno... 1 
notes
notesWhen rational Harry Potter sees a woman turn into a cat, he cannot believe the violation of the laws of physics.
08 APR 2013
Harry Potter and the Fundamental Attribution Error
“You saved them from You-Know-Who,” McGonagall said. “How
should they not care?”
Harry looked up at McGonagall and sighed. “I suppose there’s no
chance that if I said fundamental attribution error you’d have any idea
what that meant.”
McGonagall shook her head. “No, but please explain.”
“Well...” Harry said, trying to figure out how to describe that particular
bit of Muggle science. “Suppose you come into work and see your
coworker kicking his desk. You think, ‘what an angry person he must...Folksonomies: rationality cognitive bias
Folksonomies: rationality cognitive bias
1 notes
notesRational Potter explains to McConagall that people are projecting onto him powers he does not have.
08 APR 2013
The Rules of Magic Don't Make Any Sense
Some children would have waited until after their first trip to Diagon Alley.
"Bag of element 79," Harry said, and withdrew his hand, empty, from the mokeskin pouch.
Most children would have at least waited to get their wands first.
"Bag of okane," said Harry. The heavy bag of gold popped up into his hand.
Harry withdrew the bag, then plunged it again into the mokeskin pouch. He took out his hand, put it back in, and said, "Bag of tokens of economic exchange." That time his hand came out empt... 1 notes
notesRational Potter experiments with a magical bag that will give him whatever he asks for and doesn't understand why it can understand some requests but not others.
08 APR 2013
Rational Potter Plots to Take Over the Magical World
Professor McGonagall undoubtedly knew every last detail of how you went about turning into a cat. But she seemed to have literally never heard of the scientific method. To her it was just Muggle magic. And she didn't even seem curious about what secrets might be hiding behind the natural language understanding of the Retrieval Charm.
That left two possibilities, really.
Possibility one: Magic was so incredibly opaque, convoluted, and impenetrable, that even though wizards and witches had trie... 1 notes
notesThrough science!
08 APR 2013
The Planning Fallacy
Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, then closed it. The witch rubbed the bridge of her nose, looking thoughtful. "Mr. Potter... if I were to offer to listen to you for a while... is there anything you'd like to talk to me about?"
"About what?"
"About why you're convinced you must always be on your guard against terrible things happening to you."
Harry stared at her in puzzlement. That was a self-evident axiom. "Well..." Harry said slowly. He tried to organise his thoughts. How could he exp...Folksonomies: cognitive bias fallacy
Folksonomies: cognitive bias fallacy
1 notes
notesWe underestimate how close we are to completing a task, the only solution is to consider how long it took us to complete the last time we did it.
08 APR 2013
Science Can Keep You Alive is Magic Fails
Harry thought, considered, chose his weapon. "Draco, you want to explain the whole blood purity thing to me? I'm sort of new."
A wide smile crossed Draco's face. "You really should meet Father and ask him, you know, he's our leader."
"Give me the thirty-second version."
"Okay," Draco said. He drew in a deep breath, and his voice grew slightly lower, and took on a cadence. "Our powers have grown weaker, generation by generation, as the mudblood taint increases. Where Salazar and Godric and Row... 1 notes
notesRational Harry Potter explains to Draco the error in his thinking that muggles are thinning out the magic in the world and making it weaker.
08 APR 2013
The Deep Cost of Science
"Oh... there aren't many people who know how to do true science - understanding something for the very first time, even if it confuses the hell out of you. Help would be helpful."
Draco stared at Harry with his mouth open.
"But make no mistake, Draco, true science really isn't like magic, you can't just do it and walk away unchanged like learning how to say the words of a new spell. The power comes with a cost, a cost so high that most people refuse to pay it."
Draco nodded at this as though,...
1 Is learning to admit your wrong, and everytime you change your mind you change yourself.
08 APR 2013
Human Scientific Achievement is Greater Than the Magic of...
And Harry raced back up the stairs and shoved the staircase back into the trunk with his heel, and, panting, turned the pages of the book until he found the picture he wanted to show to Draco.
The one with the white, dry, cratered land, and the suited people, and the blue-white globe hanging over it all.
That picture.
The picture, if only one picture in all the world were to survive.
"That," Harry said, his voice trembling because he couldn't quite keep the pride out, "is what the Earth looks...None of the Wizards have gone to the moon. Rational Harry Potter baffles them by showing them a picture of the Earth from space.
21 APR 2014
Lies Propagate
Lies propagate, that's what I'm saying. You've got to tell more lies to cover them up, lie about every fact that's connected to the first lie. And if you kept on lying, and you kept on trying to cover it up, sooner or later you'd even have to start lying about the general laws of thought. Like, someone is selling you some kind of alternative medicine that doesn't work, and any double-blind experimental study will confirm that it doesn't work. So if someone wants to go on defending the lie, th... 1 notes
notesThey require more lies to support them and the questioning of science.
08 APR 2013
Positive Bias in the 2-4-6 Task
The boy's expression grew more intense. "This is a game based on a famous experiment called the 2-4-6 task, and this is how it works. I have a rule - known to me, but not to you - which fits some triplets of three numbers, but not others. 2-4-6 is one example of a triplet which fits the rule. In fact... let me write down the rule, just so you know it's a fixed rule, and fold it up and give it to you. Please don't look, since I infer from earlier that you can read upside-down."
The boy said "p...A game to demonstrate we jump to conclusions and seek to confirm our biases.
