Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality just got several fascinating updates
hpmor.com
hpmor.com
But I only say that to counter those people - it's indeed a delightful and addictive read. The only problem is that it updates quite infrequently and is nowhere near done - I had been suspecting that it'd been abandoned. Reading 90 or so chapters (at high speed, due to the addictiveness) only to come to a screeching halt and have to wait months for a few more chapters is not that fun!
Eliezer won't abandon this fic. If I recall correctly, there is one last arc left after the current one one. Though I would't count on it before next year.
Your suggestions do sound good, though.
If you mean the self-insertion, I think that's not too bad. Yes, Harry's reasoning is similar to Yudkowski's, but that's kind of the whole point of the fic. It's not like Harry is a copy of EY himself.
If you mean being idealized and overpowered, I agree. The only part so far where things went wrong because he didn't think fast enough or consider all the possibilities is in the most recent chapters.
On it not updating often enough: Totally, but up to chapter 96 will be released over the next few days, so you may want to stick around for a little longer.
FYI, Eliezer has explicitly stated that Harry is sometimes wrong and that he disagrees with him. He hasn't given specifics AFAIK.
HP & the MoR is one of the most compulsive and intelligent reading experiences out there. Comparable to the late Iain M Banks in compulsion, imho, and half again as clever and witty.
Unfortunately, it has a few cringeworthy moments and tropes[1]. It is definitely precocious at parts and not hard to draw the parallels with the whole Übermensch/Singularity thing (though to my understanding, the author has distanced himself from the organization and is currently at MIRI).
My chief criticism would be that it is overly bashful of the original Harry Potter story logic but lacks a tight plot through the second half. (Admittedly something very difficult to do with serialized fiction.) Up until chapter 87 I got the feel the story went off the rails, but the last few updates have been very interesting (no spoilers.)
If you enjoyed Snow Crash and do not mind fantasy, you would probably be into this. Don't take it too seriously and keep in mind it is about 1000 pages now.
[1] In particular: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue / http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MartyStu
MIRI (Machine Intelligence Research Institute) is the new name of the SIAI (Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence). They shed the term "singularity" because it has basically been hijjacked by Ray Kurzweil and his Singularity University (totally not the same organzation). MIRI also gave (or sold) the Singularity Summit to the Singularity University.
I don't recall Eliezer distancing himself from any organization. It's the organization he works for that distanced itself from certain memes.
(Recall that "Singularity" historically meant one of 3 things: Event Horizon, Intelligence Explosion, or Accelerating change. Now, with Kurzweil popularity, it only means the third thing.)
[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/EliezerYudkows... [2] http://hpmor.com/chapter/7
As for labeling, who cares?
I also don't read fan-fiction at all (this is the only fan-fiction I've ever read), but I definitely don't go around saying it's good fan-fiction. I go around saying it's a good read that makes me laugh and makes me think.
I hope, with all the additions, he hasn't gone too far in the direction of education over story.
I may be biased by my having read the LessWrong Sequences however.
Those books are split into alternative chapters of popular science, and Discworld stories about the characters reacting to our science from their point of view as characters in a fantasty novel.
So you get wizards that accidentally create a "strange" universe full of "roundworlds" and then having them wondering why people don't fall off the bottom, cue chapter on gravity and planet formation. Or in the second one they meet the "God of evolution".
I avoided reading them for years assuming they were going to be full of Dorling Kindersley "Science of Star Wars" type books full of pop-up AT-ATs and cut-away diagrams of lightsabers, but they're among the best pop science books I've read (though, I'm a fan of Pratchett, which undoubtedly helps)
Generally, only NPCs get to be stuffed into the fridge, so we don't actually feel sorry. This one is different.
Love interest not cannon? While in the end, Harry did end up with Ginny, I thought I recalled some hints something was possible with Hermione (from book 4, I think). I may be mistaken, though.
Background knowledge definitely helps with the enjoyment - and imho is the only reason why you'd want to read the JK Rowling books or watch the movies! I mean, I don't dislike the books (I've read them), but they're not much more than decent entertainment (with some of them dragging on, and on, and on).
It's a crossover between HP and the BBC's "Sherlock", where the Dursleys get killed before the start of the story in one of Moriarty's schemes against Holmes. Holmes and Watson end up adopting Harry and raising him. Harry learns a lot about observation and deduction from Holmes, and makes good use of this dealing with the problems he confronts at Hogwarts. Holmes is not content to act like a normal Muggle parent and ignore the wizarding world once his child leaves for Hogwarts. He takes an active (and not always welcomed) interest in wizard affairs.
(I loved the Harry Potter series and I love Nassim Talebs works if that matters)
In this universe, HP was raised by scientists. So, whenever he is introduced to some new magic, he says "Why? How? What are the limits?"
For example - could one apparate to the moon?
I'm going to have to ration my reading of this...
That said, you probably will get more out of it if you've already read J.K. Rowling's novels, and if you worry about whether something's 'actual literature' or not, I'm guessing you haven't.
Then again, I can understand if you have better things to do, I try not to read books that I'd regret spending the time on later. As a litmus test, if I could revoke having read HPMoR in exchange for the time I used, I wouldn't.
Counting that your average lifespan will be around 85 years, and you've been reading real literature since you were 14, that gives you 71 years of good reading. That is, if you are lucky enough to preserve your eyesight.
On average, let's say you read about 12 books per year, which gives you the sad total amount of 852 books you'll be able to read in your whole life. In my case, I've still got enough time for 684 more books. Think about this when you go into a library. A whole life worth of books fits into a couple of bookshelves...
There are more authors worth reading than books I'll ever be able to read before I die. So, nope. IMO you should NOT choose to read this over actual literature.
The only point of reading JK Rowling, imho, is to make HPMOR more fun.
Since you seem like you would have an interesting opinion on this: What books do you feel I should read before I die?
I thought you were asking sincerely, but it seems you're either trying to start a flame with your sarcasm or just not reading through my words.
If I want to read good sci-fi or fantasy I'll pick Bradbury, Asimov, or any other brilliant author I _think_ will still be read in 500 years.
Go and read whatever you like, I couldn't care less.
EDIT: Actually, it doesn't have to be like this. I'm sorry for being unnecessarily snarky when you told me how you evaluate books. If I may, I'd like to rephrase my question too: "Keeping in mind specific volumes, what is a book that you could see yourself feeling sorry for somebody having not read before their funeral?"
For old authors it's much easier, especially for the ones born more than 500 years ago ;)
Anyway, that was just an average, and I was just talking about literature, I wasn't including essays or technical books.
Which makes it a bit strange to say "don't read this, because it isn't literature". (Not your actual words, but I don't believe I'm misrepresenting your meaning.)
As you clearly appreciate, there are many reasons for reading things. Some of those reasons are best served by reading highbrow literature, some by reading technical books. Is there some general principle that makes it obvious to you that there is no good reason that would be well served by reading HPMoR?
Perhaps you have read enough of it to know you don't like it. Perhaps you've found "fanfiction is always junk" so reliable a guide that it would take an enormous amount of contrary evidence to change your mind in any instance. Fair enough, in both cases; but in both cases the actual reasons are much more detailed than "it isn't literature, so away with it".
However, most are the literary value equivalent to your average sitcom :)
My rate has really plummeted recently, but it's not as though St. Peter is going to decide my case based on whether I read the seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu in the original French. When you read for enjoyment, no one is grading you. The "real literature" thing is odd.
One book a month would be a living nightmare. If that's all I had time for, I would turn my life upside down.
This book really rips after it gets going. It is not for everyone. There are occasional blobs of 'rationality', but nothing like Ayn Rand's interminable philosophical passages. It's a great meta take on Harry Potter. And it succeeds in its own right as an adventure story. Maybe not emotionally, you could argue about that.
Different categories of books offer wildly different experiences, and the marginal utility of great literature goes down the more literature you read. By reading the best books in different genres you get a far more richer and rewarding experience than by reading only great classical literature (or only the best biographies, or only the best scientific literature).
hpmor is at a local optimum, or at least close to it. It is clever, contains tons of in-jokes and obscure references to geek culture and the book successfully subverts many tropes. So if you liked reading sci-fi or fantasy as a kid or if you like geek culture you probably will like hpmor as well. Try the first chapter or so and see for yourself.
Thanks, that's enough to tell me that I wouldn't enjoy it.
If you have any interest in fantasy / sci-fi / or the original Potter setting, this book also deliberately sends up or subverts many of the tropes common to this setting. The application to the fantasy settings is particularly interesting due to the main character attempting to apply the scientific method in a world where people can perform magic and do so without questioning where it comes from, and the book therefore tries to take Clarke's old maxim to its limit.
Is it literature? I personally think so. Will it be read in fifty years? I have no idea and care little. Do adults need to only sit down with incredibly serious books which have been approved by a set of gatekeepers? No. You're missing out on a world of weird and wonderful things if you limit yourself in such a way.
If that were true, then wouldn't it have happened already? 50 Shades of Gray is a famous example of fanfiction that was well-received enough that it got rewritten into a standalone work. I wasn't impressed. I see no reason not to interpret "best fanfiction" as "least stinky poop".
OTOH, Methods of Rationality is fanfiction for those who were disappointed with Harry Potter.