November 1, 2010

• Methods of Rationality

  We live in a world where some people use reason, some value human life, and some have technology. However, there are a great many more people with access to technology than people who would grieve over a stranger's death, a great many people who could believe, really be convinced that one of their fellow man was an enemy. This is a place where the sanctity of one man's right to arbitrarily brand another worthy of the worst torments is upheld without question, with the utmost respect, and the hell with it.

  Enter Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality):

  "Um," said the shadowy figure. "It doesn't really work like that. That's what I was trying to warn you about here, Draco. You can't make the answer come out to be anything you like."

  "You can always make the answer come out your way," said Draco. That had been practically the first thing his tutors had taught him. "It's just a matter of finding the right arguments."

  "No," said the shadowy figure, voice rising in frustration, "no, no, no! Then you get the wrong answer and you can't go to the Moon that way! Nature isn't a person, you can't trick them into believing something else, if you try to tell the Moon it's made of cheese you can argue for days and it won't change the Moon! What you're talking about is rationalization, like starting with a sheet of paper, moving straight down to the bottom line, using ink to write 'and therefore, the Moon is made of cheese', and then moving back up to write all sorts of clever arguments above. But either the Moon is made of cheese or it isn't. The moment you wrote the bottom line, it was already true or already false. Whether or not the whole sheet of paper ends up with the right conclusion or the wrong conclusion is fixed the instant you write down the bottom line. If you're trying to pick between two expensive trunks, and you like the shiny one, it doesn't matter what clever arguments you come up with for buying it, the real rule you used to choose which trunk to argue for was 'pick the shiny one', and however effective that rule is at picking good trunks, that's the kind of trunk you'll get. Rationality can't be used to argue for a fixed side, its only possible use is deciding which side to argue. Science isn't for convincing anyone that the blood purists are right. That's politics! The power of science comes from finding out the way Nature really is that can't be changed by arguing! What science can do is tell us how blood really works, how wizards really inherit their powers from their parents, and whether Muggleborns are really weaker or stronger -"

  If your rule is "believe what this person told you," or "believe what you observe," or "believe in the book that this person told you to believe in," then however effective that rule is at picking valid statements, that's the kind of belief you're going to get. Well, come in and read of topics in science, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, and a vast array of other fields. Watch Harry attempt a proof of P=NP with a time turner. And in the meanwhile, receive (from this humorous and fascinating dialogue) the tools to evaluate not only your beliefs, but your very rules. Even if you disagree with what the author has to say, it will be a spectacular ride, for you need not believe in magic to enjoy Harry Potter.

  It is a service to the world that as many people know as much of rationality as possible, and so, I beg of you, if you ever have even a few minutes, sit down a read a chapter. I promise it is something the likes of which has never been seen.

  ---

  "To pass your test," Harry said, "I'm going to have to say what it means to me, . . . . So my version of the thought, Draco, is that when we go out into the stars, we might find other people there. And if so, they certainly won't look like we do. There might be things out there that are grown from crystal, or big pulsating blobs... or they might be made of magic, now that I think about it. So with all that strangeness, how do you recognize a person? . . . You would have to recognize them as people from their minds. And even their minds wouldn't work just like ours do. But anything that lives and thinks and knows itself and doesn't want to die, it's sad, Draco, it's sad if that person has to die, because it doesn't want to. Compared to what might be out there, every human being who ever lived, we're all like brothers and sisters, you could hardly even tell us apart. . . they'd just see a human being. Humans who can love, and hate, and laugh, and cry; . . . that would make us all as alike as peas in the same pod. They would be different, though. Really different. But that wouldn't stop us, and it wouldn't stop them, if we both wanted to be friends together."

  [snip]
  

  "I have a dream," said Harry's voice, "that one day sentient beings will be judged by the patterns of their minds, and not their color or their shape or the stuff they're made of, or who their parents were. Because if we can get along with crystal things someday, how silly would it be not to get along with Muggleborns, who are shaped like us, and think like us, as alike to us as peas in a pod? . . . How impossible is it to imagine that the hatred poisoning Slytherin House would be worth taking with us to the stars? Every life is precious, everything that thinks and knows itself and doesn't want to die. Lily Potter's life was precious, and Narcissa Malfoy's life was precious, even though it's too late for them now, it was sad when they died. But there are other lives that are still alive to be fought for. Your life, and my life, and Hermione Granger's life, all the lives of Earth, and all the lives beyond, to be defended and protected, EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

  It's passages like these that speak most of all, not just about humans killing each other, but death at all. For Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres does not accept death as the inevitable end, refuses the idea that people might have to die, and goes about it in a much more active way than this silly blogger went about praying and groveling (this was exactly a year ago today! I still consider it the best piece of writing I've ever produced. http://wobster109.xanga.com/715692309/this-is-the-way-the-world-ends/). But I know that Harry in this story deals with the same thing, and that Dumbledore would never understand. Chapters like these especially, they speak of a dream that I'd previously not even dared to think, not since I gave up my hopes of existing in heaven.

  And to close off, this magnificent passage that, I believe, is a fitting response to all those who have accused me, by virtue of my atheism, of not caring if people run around stealing and hurting others and being selfish:

  [Dumbledore asks Harry what he would do with eternity]

  Harry took a deep breath. "Meet all the interesting people in the world, read all the good books and then write something even better, celebrate my first grandchild's tenth birthday party on the Moon, celebrate my first great-great-great grandchild's hundredth birthday party around the Rings of Saturn, learn the deepest and final rules of Nature, understand the nature of consciousness, find out why anything exists in the first place, visit other stars, discover aliens, create aliens, rendezvous with everyone for a party on the other side of the Milky Way once we've explored the whole thing, meet up with everyone else who was born on Old Earth to watch the Sun finally go out, and I used to worry about finding a way to escape this universe before it ran out of negentropy but I'm a lot more hopeful now that I've discovered the so-called laws of physics are just optional guidelines."

  [snip]

  The young boy stood very straight, his chin raised high and proud, and said: "There is no justice in the laws of Nature, Headmaster, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! We care! There is light in the world, and it is us!"

  • 5:02 pm
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