That's all good and shit but we don't care about his other crap, the thread is about the pile of crap labeled Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, that is what we are reviewing. Its apparent that the author has been directed here or made aware of this thread, so he can defend his story and reasoning or well, who cares. It started bad, its getting worse and at this point almost full rewrite would be required to make it a 1/5.

 

Please ignore the blubbering idiot.

That said, he's kinda right. The Haruhi Suzumiya story was technically sound (though, in my opinion, as dry as cardboard), but his other works aren't under the microscope. (On that note, I also find his other stories pretty dry as well. Methods of Rationality isn't as well written as Trust in God, but it's got more meat on its bones than his others.)

As long as he commits to some genre or other, and then takes the time to actually make it decent, he could make this story really great. As it is, he's just driving his story into the ground.

And on top of that, Yudkowsky seems to be throwing a bit of a hissy fit. He's cited legitimate concerns and called them flames, and does seem to come off as arrogant and egotistical. He says he's awesome because he got so many reviews so quickly, and yet doesn't realize he's being reviewed by whiny brats who fap to poorly-written slash fics and leave glowing reviews. I don't call that success - I call that mediocrity. He clearly has the capacity to write well, but he either chooses not to or has convinced himself that he is already.

The masses like what they like. He should be smart enough to realize that doesn't mean what they like is good.

Edit: Just read through some of the Less Wrong blog. He seems to have a bit of a following there, though from what I can see it's just ff.net reviewers with better grammar. I stand by what I said.

 

I care because his other work is an indication of what we can expect of THIS work. If his other work is utter shite, there's no reason to suspect that he suddenly grew a talent gland in his armpit or something. On the other hand, if his other work is good, then perhaps this work will turn out well, too.

 

Updated. This chapter was much nicer. Now only if he continues writing in this manner.

 

This chapter was... I'm tempted to say filler, though that wouldn't be accurate. There's lots of waffling about and emotional exploration, but it all boils down to Harry having a conversation with himself-as-a-hat and being sorted. It reads more like his other fiction than the story thus far - not as exciting, but well written. I personally think this chapter is drawn out a bit too much, and that Less Wrong hasn't left enough up to speculation, though I'm sure many will like the circular depths in this chapter. This one's been thought out much better than others.

Still not a drop of consistency in sight.

 

...and now his perfectly reasonable/humble author's note makes me feel like a douche.

Also, he's taken GEB a bit too literally, lol. I think it's explicitly stated that strange loops are meant to be a metaphor for the way consciousness emerges, not actual consciousness itself... as he says, Principia Mathematica isn't conscious.

But then I guess GEB didn't take magic into account.

 

I have, officially, given up on this. Everyone acts so over the top that my suspension of disbelief cannot be sustained.

I wish someone more subdued would try writing something like this, though.

 

I wandered about his website for a bit and skimmed a couple of his other stories. To those following and enjoying this story, I discourage doing this since it detracts markedly from the reading experience. (I'll probably stop following this story now as well).

This story reminds me of reading Ayn Rand, where a fictional story is merely a vehicle for bludgeoning the reader with a "superior" worldview; characters espousing said worldview win out over those who don't in equal parts wish fulfillment on the part of the author and morality play for the reader. Rather than organic dialogue, the reader receives mini-lectures delivered using different characters as mouthpieces and/or sounding boards. In this chapter, it was the Sorting Hat waxing on thoughts of self-awareness in the Harry Potter analogue of machine consciousness, the author's professional bailiwick.

I suspect much of the inconsistency is that the author is shoehorning a lesson du jour into his chapters rather than allow the story to grow naturally. In some places this works, but in others, it's clumsy and grinds gears. A deft touch is needed to do this in a way that doesn't turn preachy and turn off readers.

@Mordac, The best "rational Harry tries to understand magic" story that I've come across is Ruskbyte's crossover with Iain M. Banks's Culture novels, Culture Shock. Unfortunately, he's not updated in a year and a half, so the story is probably as good as abandoned.

 

All the negatives about the chapter being stated, Epic ending was pretty Epic.

 

Actually, the "epic ending" was the worst turnoff in the whole thing.

"Some students screamed, the pent-up tension was so great. People startled hard enough to fall off their benches. Hagrid gasped in horror, McGonagall staggered at the podium, and Snape dropped the remains of his heavy silver goblet directly onto his groin."

Real people don't act this way. Someone said this about that fic where Stephen Colbert's wizard version taught at Hogwarts (which, unlike this one, was actually somewhat funny), where people did the same thing. Actually, let me find the quote:

This is even more true here. It's just cringeworthy and sad.

EDIT: @ Perspicacity: I did read that fic, since it was posted on DLP, even if I hadn't read any of the culture books, but like you say, it's sadly abandoned. It was much more enjoyable than this one, at any rate, even if it was still a bit too exuberant for my tastes.

 

Unnamed students in Hogwarts acting normally? Does something like that even exist in fanfiction?

 

Exactly. I read some of his other fiction, and I liked it. But, I was basically forced to skim when a character started to spontaneously hold forth on the dry minutae of scientific rationale. I don't oppose their presence, only the method of their delivery. They shouldn't intrude on the story, but flavor it.

Having said that, I thought the latest chapter was better. I'm not sure what to make of the hat being self-aware and knowledgeable in some areas, having a statistical summary of past experiences and claiming ignorance in the next breath. It was a little twisted and overdone, but nothing heinous. So, I'll keep reading this in the hopes that the author will hit his stride.

 

Well, getting back on track I guess.

I actually don't think i've ever seen the sorting hat used in that particular way before. I'm sure others have however.

Good to see you went back on track author. Looking forward to more, once more.

 

That stunt with review counts really worked. The fic got 500 reviews in less than a week. I hope that satisfied him and hopefully he wont pull a stunt like that again. This new chapter was a huge improvement from the embarrassment last chapter. The balance of rationality and humor was a good mix in this one. I laughed out loud at the end.

 

I'm highly confused by the whole sorting hat affair. At first, the idea of a mirror was quite new and interesting....until I realized the many instances in canon where this doesn't work then as I continued to read this chapter, I realized it wouldn't work here either. I mean if the hat can remember kids who have been sorted, gone against his advice, and ended up going bad suggests it might work differently than explained.

There are several instances of thoughts the sorting hat would have that seems to make it more than a way of self reflection. At any rate the author's note was nice. I didn't particularly care for the crazy reactions to his sorting, or the fact that he made an entire chapter devoted to sorting one student. I'm pretty sure there should never ever be a chapter or even a half of a chapter devoted to the sorting. Calling it as dry as cardboard does a major disservice to cardboard.

 

Sentience is not required for memory; just look at your computer. The hat itself, in the fic, says that it has considerable memory and processing power, but that only when that processing power is turned in on itself does it become conscious. It's basically all based on an idea proposed in the book "Godel, Escher, Bach" that self-reference is the key to consciousness.

 

But that doesn't explain why the hat couldn't answer some of his questions then. That is essentially the problem I had with it. Either the hat has memory or it doesn't. I preferred the idea that it didn't as that would have been knew and interesting.

I will admit I must have missed that line when I was reading that chapter, but in all fairness, that was a dry chapter. I cannot be held accountable for skimming it.

 

The Hat stores a statistical summary of the data, not the raw data. This is used by all entities that provide statistics to the public. For example, the US census bureau. The graphs in the wikipedia article on household income use information collected by the IRS and summarized into tables that allow you to get the big picture without being able to find out how much money your neighbor makes. The Google Zeitgeist gives some data summarized from millions of individual user interactions with google, but it does not allow you to find out that your neighbor frequently searches for horse pr0n. If you don't even store the raw data after it has been summarized, people who value their privacy are less worried about unauthorized access to said data - it's gone. IRL, for obvious reasons, law enforcement often forces some data to be stored for a number of years (or they make their own copies).

 

The last few chapters were a chore to read. The humor is lost on me, so I guess I won't be reading it any longer.

And for fucks sake, a whole chapter just for Harry's talk with the Hat? Really?

 

Didn't the hat state somewhere in that chapter that he couldn't offer Harry statistics? Or was it another misreading on my part due to dryness?