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Xander77 posted:I don't think we get any characterization for the Granger's in the HP universe (beyond the telling fact that Hermione did not hesitate to mind-wipe them and ship them off to Australia), but this isn't necessarily the worst bit of writing. Both insofar as how bright girls are often treated, and in that it's Hermione's business, rather than Harry's. I don't see how "she'd probably have gone to medical school if she hadn't been magic" translates to "she's not smart" though. Her parents are both dentists and they probably think of themselves as pretty smart, so it's not exactly an insult to say their daughter could also be a dentist.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 00:05 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 07:31 |
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Xander77 posted:
I think there's something deeply ironic about the fact that the original book series has a not-insignificant theme regarding the inevitability of death and the contrast between the villain's (fittingly named "Flight from Death" in French) depraved/pathetic/desperate attempts to seek immortality, driven by a fear of the unknown and a fear of death, compared against the mentor figure's embrace and acceptance of death (and, in fact, his acceptance of an early death by the Killing Curse, in order to protect a child who has lost his way) as an inevitability that should not be feared. And then you've got the Singularity cultists and Peter Thiel and Yud and they're all so terrified of dying and desperately trying to figure out ways to upload their brains into computers or inject young people's blood into their veins so they can live forever.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 03:39 |
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Colin Mockery posted:I think there's something deeply ironic about the fact that the original book series has a not-insignificant theme regarding the inevitability of death and the contrast between the villain's (fittingly named "Flight from Death" in French) depraved/pathetic/desperate attempts to seek immortality, driven by a fear of the unknown and a fear of death, compared against the mentor figure's embrace and acceptance of death (and, in fact, his acceptance of an early death by the Killing Curse, in order to protect a child who has lost his way) as an inevitability that should not be feared. Yes, completely. Any sensible person would be. One major reason I like HPMOR, despite its many silly parts, is because it has a anti-deathist agenda.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 05:00 |
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Even though I disagree with 90% of Yud's view on the matter, yeah, I really don't see anything wrong with "Fanfiction as argument with the creator."
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 05:34 |
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On the one hand, I really don't like dying, in the present or future tense. On the other hand, Big Yud is a massive prat
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 05:44 |
reignonyourparade posted:Even though I disagree with 90% of Yud's view on the matter, yeah, I really don't see anything wrong with "Fanfiction as argument with the creator." I think it's somewhat childish to take someone's work and basically misinterpret it to argue your own points. You can get away with it if you have a deep knowledge and appreciation of the source material, I think, but Yud clearly doesn't.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 05:46 |
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Milky Moor posted:I think it's somewhat childish to take someone's work and basically misinterpret it to argue your own points. You can get away with it if you have a deep knowledge and appreciation of the source material, I think, but Yud clearly doesn't. Probably the best example of this is how he makes Dementors the embodiment of death.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 06:05 |
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Moddington posted:Probably the best example of this is how he makes Dementors the embodiment of death. To be fair, death is, like depression (the originally intended metaphor), an unpleasant thing you don't want to experience. However, he could have just as easily made dementors the embodiment of falling down the stairs, or meeting Eliezer Yudkowsky.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 06:18 |
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Dying is actually cool and good. Enjoy your life and be the best person you can, don't actively seek death, and just gracefully bow out when the time comes. Don't be a pussy.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 06:37 |
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Colin Mockery posted:I think there's something deeply ironic about the fact that the original book series has a not-insignificant theme regarding the inevitability of death and the contrast between the villain's (fittingly named "Flight from Death" in French) depraved/pathetic/desperate attempts to seek immortality, driven by a fear of the unknown and a fear of death, compared against the mentor figure's embrace and acceptance of death (and, in fact, his acceptance of an early death by the Killing Curse, in order to protect a child who has lost his way) as an inevitability that should not be feared.
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 06:59 |
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21 Muns posted:To be fair, death is, like depression (the originally intended metaphor), an unpleasant thing you don't want to experience. However, he could have just as easily made dementors the embodiment of falling down the stairs, or meeting Eliezer Yudkowsky. quote:The Dementor's face drew closer and closer to Harry's, and even in the dim light he could faintly see, beneath the hood, the horrible empty hole that they had in place of a mouth. Closer and closer it came, until it stopped, mere inches from Harry. Then, with a gust of fetid air, it uttered a dread rattle:
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 07:30 |
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# ? Mar 18, 2017 16:45 |
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Jazerus posted:Harry's magical grandparents were reasonably old when they had his father, and were probably killed by the same dragon pox outbreak that killed Malfoy's grandfather as well. Are they dead, though? They're never mentioned at all in the series really, beyond that they were Muggles, and I always figured they just were too old to take Harry on when Petunia could instead.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 01:51 |
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Liquid Communism posted:Are they dead, though? They're never mentioned at all in the series really, beyond that they were Muggles, and I always figured they just were too old to take Harry on when Petunia could instead. Rowling confirmed that they're dead in webchats around the time Half-Blood Prince came out.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 01:56 |
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Chapter 37: Interlude: Crossing the Boundaryquote:It was almost midnight. Not the least bit creepy. quote:"No one's supposed to know where I am!" said Harry, still keeping the shriek quiet. "Even owls are supposed to deliver my mail to Hogwarts, not here!" Harry had agreed to that willingly; it would be silly if a Death Eater could win the whole war at any time just by owling him a magically triggered hand grenade. quote:"Put on your winter coat," said Professor Quirrell, "or take a warming potion if you have one; and meet me outside, under the stars. I shall see if I can maintain it a little longer this time." Xander77 fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Mar 19, 2017 |
# ? Mar 19, 2017 12:53 |
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Parents, talk to your kids about astronomy before someone else does.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 13:54 |
NihilCredo posted:Parents, talk to your kids about astronomy before someone else does. Someone has to have the Tim and Eric bit on hand, the one where they shine lights through a kid's window late at night against the wishes of his parents so they can teach him about the stars.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 13:58 |
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Wow. That's not creepy at all.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 14:43 |
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Liquid Communism posted:Wow. That's not creepy at all. It is important to note that this bit is really obviously wish fulfillment, where the author wishes he was both of his avatars in this scene.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 15:03 |
Liquid Communism posted:Wow. That's not creepy at all. Presumably, you're supposed to mentally replace Quirrell with Carl Sagan.
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# ? Mar 19, 2017 20:07 |
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Chapter 38: The Cardinal Sinquote:Harry took out his wizards' robes quote:what he needed was something completely frivolous to occupy his attention... quote:Harry was just reading about the Ministry's proposed marriage law, to ban all marriages, when - Except written by Yudkowsky. Neville's grandma comes along to defend Harry: quote:"I doubt it is the world that is mad," said Madam Longbottom. Her voice took on a gloating tone. "You seem in a poor mood, Mr. Malfoy. Did the speech of our dear Professor Quirrell cost you a few allies?" Long story short: quote:"My son is my heart," said the senior Malfoy, "the last worthwhile thing I have left in this world, and this I say to you in a spirit of friendship: if he were to come to harm, I would give my life over to vengeance. But so long as my son does not come to harm, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. And as you have asked nothing more of me, I will ask nothing more of you." quote:"You have wrought many changes in my grandson," said Madam Longbottom. "I approve of some, but not others." quote:"What did you say to Father?" blurted Draco, the moment the Quieting Charm went up and the sounds of Platform 9 3/4 vanished.
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# ? Mar 20, 2017 10:22 |
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If I learned anything from the Men in Black movie and tabletop RPG, it's that the hot sheets (tabloids) are the thing to watch for real news. The nonsense poo poo is a smokescreen and pays the bills. Isn't it the National Enquirer known for a pretty flawless record of breaking huge affair scandals before anyone else even got a whiff of it?
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# ? Mar 20, 2017 22:11 |
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Pvt.Scott posted:If I learned anything from the Men in Black movie and tabletop RPG, it's that the hot sheets (tabloids) are the thing to watch for real news. The nonsense poo poo is a smokescreen and pays the bills. Isn't it the National Enquirer known for a pretty flawless record of breaking huge affair scandals before anyone else even got a whiff of it? It did this exactly once but it likes to say it has that thing, yes.
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# ? Mar 20, 2017 22:15 |
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Night10194 posted:It did this exactly once but it likes to say it has that thing, yes. Ah
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# ? Mar 20, 2017 22:16 |
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Night10194 posted:It did this exactly once but it likes to say it has that thing, yes. Eh, its been more than once. It's just that their overall success rate is abysmal.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 05:49 |
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There's also the bit where Harriezer tries to sum up pre-socratic philosophy in "oh they believed "all is fire" or "all is water" without asking themselves the question how they could possibly know that" etc. which is a gross misconception of both Heraclitus and Thales, of course. The reasonable point to be made around ancient Greek philosophers is that those are very early attempts at explaining things without reference to gods - and of course, the arche, or the nature/principle of the world (which was what they referred to as water or fire) is not the same as the hyle, the matter. Everything isn't physically made out of fire or out of water, that would be something else. It's more a matter of, well, principles. Everything is ever-changing, like fire. Like previously, the explanation for, say, earthquakes, would have been "Probably Hephaestus smithing again". Thales had his own explanation (the earth is a disc encased in water, and waves in that water sometimes rocks the earth). While it's absurdly wrong by our standards, what's notable is that it's an explanation that CAN be wrong, because it's naturalistic. Like he's literally considering the first weak steps out of a worldview where Goddidit was everything to be a cardinal sin, because they didn't have the underpinnings of modern day scientific theory. Well no poo poo. Similarly you could tell Galileo, Newton, and Darwin to go gently caress themselves, because they also fail at modern-day science for one reason or another. (Galileo stuck to his wrong heliocentric model even though the data predicted by the model wasn't there, Newton believed in alchemy, but you can't change elements to other elements like that, and Darwin had no model of genes, so his system of inheritance was inherently unworkable.)
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 13:45 |
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Exercu posted:There's also the bit where Harriezer tries to sum up pre-socratic philosophy in "oh they believed "all is fire" or "all is water" without asking themselves the question how they could possibly know that" etc. which is a gross misconception of both Heraclitus and Thales, of course.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 14:01 |
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Exercu posted:Like previously, the explanation for, say, earthquakes, would have been "Probably Hephaestus smithing again". Thales had his own explanation (the earth is a disc encased in water, and waves in that water sometimes rocks the earth). While it's absurdly wrong by our standards, what's notable is that it's an explanation that CAN be wrong, because it's naturalistic. The thing is, Yud basically believes a sufficiently intelligent person will arrive at brilliant ideas instantly and a-priori. He talks a big game about the scientific method, but at heart he believes ~rationalism~ with a sufficiently intelligent character or person will just get things right immediately most of the time. So to him what would matter is that this was wrong, not that it could be wrong and that that represented a big step forward in the explanation of natural phenomena.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 14:05 |
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Night10194 posted:The thing is, Yud basically believes a sufficiently intelligent person will arrive at brilliant ideas instantly and a-priori. He talks a big game about the scientific method, but at heart he believes ~rationalism~ with a sufficiently intelligent character or person will just get things right immediately most of the time. So to him what would matter is that this was wrong, not that it could be wrong and that that represented a big step forward in the explanation of natural phenomena. Which, ironically, is a very Aristotelian way of thinking.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 14:30 |
Night10194 posted:The thing is, Yud basically believes a sufficiently intelligent person will arrive at brilliant ideas instantly and a-priori. He talks a big game about the scientific method, but at heart he believes ~rationalism~ with a sufficiently intelligent character or person will just get things right immediately most of the time. So to him what would matter is that this was wrong, not that it could be wrong and that that represented a big step forward in the explanation of natural phenomena. The cult of Bayes - Bayesfu? something like that - short story he wrote is the ultimate condensed version of this. His characters talk about how much Einstein sucked to not just come up with the correct formulation for Quantum Relativity - he should have just assumed it was possible and then done it. God he's annoying.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 15:16 |
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Darth Walrus posted:Which, ironically, is a very Aristotelian way of thinking. Nah, Aristotle maintains that all knowledge at some point comes through perception. Yud is more of a modern rationalist, really. We're talking budget rate Descartes.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 16:00 |
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Cavelcade posted:The cult of Bayes - Bayesfu? something like that - short story he wrote is the ultimate condensed version of this. His characters talk about how much Einstein sucked to not just come up with the correct formulation for Quantum Relativity - he should have just assumed it was possible and then done it. It has a really obvious source, of course. That's how bad sci-fi and fantasy authors write Smart Characters; they have the next 15 pages of the script, are conversant and masterful in every academic discipline, and are never, ever wrong. So that's what Yud thinks smart looks like.
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# ? Mar 21, 2017 19:10 |
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Xander77 posted:It took me a while to figure out what's going on here. I haven't been able to follow much of anything for a while now. Does it make any more sense if I read the whole thing rather than your snippets? I'm thinking not
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# ? Mar 23, 2017 00:52 |
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Cyrai posted:I haven't been able to follow much of anything for a while now.
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# ? Mar 23, 2017 05:40 |
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Xander77 posted:If the initial reference doesn't make sense to you, try the "I know you know I know" battle of wits from the Princess Bride, except the author never bothered to establish what each character actually knows. Because the answer is always "You know nothing,
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# ? Mar 29, 2017 11:48 |
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Pvt.Scott posted:If I learned anything from the Men in Black movie and tabletop RPG, it's that the hot sheets (tabloids) are the thing to watch for real news. The nonsense poo poo is a smokescreen and pays the bills. Isn't it the National Enquirer known for a pretty flawless record of breaking huge affair scandals before anyone else even got a whiff of it? It's worth mentioning that in the actual books, the Quibbler is (a) often closer to right than the official line or at least working for a disbelieved truth and (b) is literally the organ of truth once Luna gets in with Harry's crew. It's also worth pointing out that the first two items in the Quibbler, here, are closer to right than not -- the Dark Lord is planning to return, and a handfasting with Draco is an early order of business, and in a certain sense Sirius and Pettigrew are the same person.
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# ? Mar 29, 2017 20:07 |
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Sorry about the delay - I have no plans to abandon this, but I have this, like, job thing now, maaaaaaaaaan... Chapter 39: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 1 (1) quote:Professor Flitwick had silently passed Harry a folded parchment during Charms class that Monday, and the note had said that Harry was to visit the Headmaster at his convenience and in such fashion that no one else would notice, especially not Draco Malfoy or Professor Quirrell. His one-time password for the gargoyle would be "squeamish ossifrage". This had been accompanied by a remarkably artistic ink drawing of Professor Flitwick staring at him sternly, the eyes of which occasionally blinked; and at the bottom of the note, underlined three times, was the phrase DON'T GET INTO TROUBLE. quote:Even Harry could understand why Dumbledore wouldn't want him to interact with Lucius Malfoy; it didn't seem like an evil deed. quote:"Tell me, Harry, what evil could you accomplish if a Dementor were allowed onto the grounds of Hogwarts?" The Dementors are going to matter for what happens next though. quote:"I have another question for that young man," said the Headmaster. "It is something I have long wondered to myself, yet been unable to comprehend. Why? " There was a tinge of pain in his voice. "Why would anyone deliberately make himself a monster? Why do evil for the sake of evil? Why Voldemort?" quote:Well, sounding wise wasn't difficult. It was a lot easier than being intelligent, actually, since you didn't have to say anything surprising or come up with any new insights. You just let your brain's pattern-matching software complete the cliche, using whatever Deep Wisdom you'd stored previously. (Remind me again - what concrete plans and concrete results did Yud's research ever produce?) ... Dumbledore is going to become an amalgamation of all things Yud despises in experts and / or naysayers: quote:"Tell me, Harry," said the Headmaster (and now his voice sounded simply puzzled, though there was still a hint of pain in his eyes), "why do Dark Wizards fear death so greatly?"
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# ? Apr 1, 2017 17:58 |
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There’s a novella by Michael Blackbourn called Roko’s Basilisk on Kindle. Its themes are what you’d expect from that title - strong AI, the end of civilisation as we know it. It’s up for free on Kindle (UK link, US link) today (Sunday 2 April 2017) only. Just finished it (it’s very short and a quick and easy read). It’s a quick psychological horror short. Basically it takes the concepts behind roko’s basilisk and puts them into story form. The character “Roko” plays both Yudkowsky and real-life Roko and explains the killing meme to his not-as-brilliant friend. In this world “friendly AI” is a term used in real AI research (rather than something that gets real AI researchers punching walls harder than chemists do at “nanobots”). “Roko” has solved Coherent Extrapolated Volition or something close enough for a scifi handwave and worked out the basilisk, and frightened the poo poo out of himself. I … literally can’t judge how effectively it does this, because having written and exhaustively footnoted most of the RationalWiki article on the subject it is impossible for me to judge how well it gets it all across to the previously-unaware reader. It seems to end abruptly, but the next episode is available (though not for free). It’s not terrible even if the editing is sloppy and it’s well worth $0.00 for a quick read and might even be worth its usual 99p/$1.23. I would be interested to hear what others made of it. But I was particularly amused that he also has AI Box Experiment the Short Story. Fiction that directly uses Yudkowskian philosophy! I'd love to see fans of rationalfic reacting to this stuff, and how quickly they try to lynch him.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 20:41 |
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Chapter 39: Pretending to be Wise, Pt 1 (pt 2) In which Harriezer faces his greatest strawman yet. quote:"What? " said Dumbledore. quote:Okay," said Harry, "let me put it this way. Do you want to die? Because if so, there's this Muggle thing called a suicide prevention hotline -" quote:What would you do with eternity, Harry?" quote:"Do not mourn me too greatly, Harry, when my time comes; I will be with those I have long missed, on our next great adventure." Harriezer seizes on a few facts, creatively reinterprets others, and completely ignores the rest. Ghosts, portraits, manifestations - all just imprints, remaining bits of personality lingering behind. No evidence of an actual afterlife, no sir. Thing is - even if you accept every thing Harriezer claims here (and it's mostly bullshit) - you're still left with traces of personality lingering behind when the body is gone. At the very very least, that's enough to confirm a Cartesian dualism, a mind that is separate from the body. Which is basically a soul in any meaningful sense, and is certainly closer to a theistic perspective than anything Yud believes in. quote:Because if people had souls there wouldn't be any such thing as brain damage, if your soul could go on speaking after your whole brain was gone, how could damage to the left cerebral hemisphere take away your ability to talk? And Professor McGonagall, when she told me about how my parents had died, she didn't act like they'd just gone away on a long trip to another country, like they'd emigrated to Australia back in the days of sailing ships, which is the way people would act if they actually knew that death was just going somewhere else, if they had hard evidence for an afterlife, instead of making stuff up to console themselves, it would change everything, it wouldn't matter that everyone had lost someone in the war, it would be a little sad but not horrible! And I'd already seen that people in the wizarding world didn't act like that! So I should have known better! And that was when I knew that my parents were really dead and gone forever and ever, that there wasn't anything left of them, that I'd never get a chance to meet them and, and, and the other children thought I was crying because I was scared of ghosts -" quote:Dumbledore appeared to be fighting a struggle within himself. "Harry," the old wizard said, his voice rising, "this is a dangerous road you are walking, I am not sure I do the right thing by saying this, but I must wrench you from this way! Harry, how could Voldemort have survived the death of his body if he did not have a soul? " quote:"You are not fooling me, Harry," said the old wizard; his face looked ancient now, and lined by more than years. "I know why you are truly asking that question. No, I do not read your mind, I do not have to, your hesitation gives you away! You seek the secret of the Dark Lord's immortality in order to use it for yourself!" quote:"I know not what to say." He picked up a crystal ball that seemed to hold a hand in flames, looked into it with a sad expression. "Only that I am greatly misunderstood by you... I don't want everyone to die, Harry!" quote:Harry was trying not to go any colder than he already was; from somewhere there was pouring into his mind a blazing fury of resentment, at Dumbledore's condescension, and all the laughter that wise old fools had ever used in place of argument. "Funny thing, you know, I thought Draco Malfoy was going to be this impossible to talk to, and instead, in his childish innocence, he was a hundred times stronger than you." quote: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! " What did the author of this quote ever do to make the world a better? He condescendingly mocks political struggle to improve lives here and now as arbitrary factional strife that is beneath him. He rages against scientific norms, as Xander77 fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Apr 8, 2017 |
# ? Apr 8, 2017 10:47 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 07:31 |
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HPMOR: "Bwa ha ha!" said Harry.
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# ? Apr 8, 2017 10:58 |