Last modified: 2025-01-22 12:57:54
< 2025-01-19 2025-01-22 >I've been listening to an audiobook of Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality".
I've just got to a bit where Harry Potter is naked in a graveyard or whatever, facing Voldemort and 37 (?) death eaters.
Harry has just made an "unbreakable vow" which means he can't take any action which he reasonably believes will cause the end of the world. The vow can't oblige any action, only inaction. If he has to choose between something that will do a big bad end of the world and some smaller harm he has to choose the smaller harm.
Also, Voldemort has told the death eaters that if Harry tries to move they are to kill him (or do something else really bad, can't remember, but it's basically a non-option). Also if he tries to speak English same happens. He is just to think for 60 seconds and then respond to Voldemort in Parseltongue, which is snake language in which he can not lie.
It is suggested that he can say whatever he wants as long as it is literally true. Also suggested that a "perfect Occlumans" or something might be able to lie in snake language but that Harry is not that.
Voldemort has told Harry that he's about to die, but he likes having learnt Muggle Science from Harry, and if Harry has any other powers that Voldemort does not have, then he has 60 seconds to start saying so, otherwise he gets killed or something after the 60 seconds. For every interesting thing he reveals, Harry is able to save the life, or prevent the suffering, or something, of 1 person he names.
Also that Voldemort is interested in general powers and other secrets that may be of use to him.
Harry and Voldemort are both Tom Riddle, is it possible that the unbreakable vow also binds Voldemort? I don't think so, because Voldemort asked one of the death eaters if he felt that the vow had been enacted, and Voldemort himself would surely have felt it if it indeed bound Voldemort.
If Harry indeed has some useful power or secret, and he reasonably believes that revealing it to Voldemort would risk ending the world, then the unbreakable vow will prevent him from revealing it.
And that argument applies regardless of whether Harry has any useful power or secret, although Voldemort will also be able to know this.
But because the unbreakable vow is literally unbreakable, it is possible that Harry has some power or secret that he has conveniently forgotten because remembering it would cause the end of the world.
Could Harry name himself as the person whose life is to be saved?
Does Harry in fact know anything else that might be useful to Voldemort and that Voldemort does not already know?
Based on the unbreakable vow:
"Voldemort, the unbreakable vow prevents me from revealing to you anything that I reasonably believe might lead to the end of the world. If remembering it would lead to me revealing it, then the vow prevents me even from remembering any special powers or secrets. I find that I am peculiarly unable to remember specific powers or secrets that my be of use to you, but if you kill me now then that knowledge will die with me! If you wish to gain knowledge or power from me then you must keep me alive."
Based on naming yourself:
"Voldemort, I'll tell you the secret of how joy and meaning can be created from bringing joy to others. And in return, the life I choose to save is my own."
< 2025-01-19 2025-01-22 >