Eliezer Yudkowsky - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

In all politeness, Harry raised his hand.

"Yes?" the Headmaster said reluctantly.

"The obvious test to see if the Resurrection Stone is really calling back the dead, or just projecting an image from the user's mind, is to ask a question whose answer you don't know, but the dead person would , and that can be definitely verified in this world. For example, call back -"

Then Harry paused, because this time he'd managed to think it through one step ahead of his tongue, fast enough to not say the first name and test that had sprung to mind.

"...your dead wife, and ask her where she left her lost earring, or something like that," Harry finished. "Did anyone do any tests like that?"

"The Resurrection Stone has been lost for centuries, Harry," the Headmaster said quietly.

Harry shrugged. "Well, I'm a scientist, and I'm always willing to be convinced. If you really believe the Resurrection Stone calls back the dead - then you must believe a test like that will succeed, right? So do you know anything about where to find the Resurrection Stone? I got one Deathly Hallow already under highly mysterious circumstances, and, well, we both know how the rhythm of the world works on that sort of thing."

Dumbledore stared at Harry.

Harry gazed equably back at the Headmaster.

The old wizard passed a hand across his forehead and muttered, "This is madness."

(Somehow, Harry managed to stop himself from laughing.)

And Dumbledore told Harry to draw forth the Cloak of Invisibility from his pouch; at the Headmaster's direction, Harry stared at the inside and back of the hood until he saw it, faintly drawn against the silvery mesh in faded scarlet like dried blood, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows: a triangle, with a circle drawn inside, and a line dividing them both.

"Thank you," Harry said politely. "I shall be sure to keep an eye out for a stone so marked. Do you have any other evidence?"

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? "

And that was when Harry realized that there was exactly one person who'd originally told Professor McGonagall that the Dark Lord was still alive in the first place; and it was the crazy Headmaster of their madhouse of a school, who thought the world ran on cliches.

"Good question," Harry said, after some internal debate about how to proceed. "Maybe he found some way of duplicating the power of the Resurrection Stone, only he loaded it in advance with a complete copy of his brain state. Or something like that." Harry was suddenly far from sure that he was trying to come up with an explanation for something that had actually happened . "Actually, can you just go ahead and tell me everything you know about how the Dark Lord survived and what it might take to kill him?" If he even still exists as more than Quibbler headlines.

"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!"

"Wrong! I want the secret of the Dark Lord's immortality in order to use it for everyone! "

Tick, crackle, fzzzt...

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore just stood there and stared at Harry with his mouth gaping open dumbly.

(Harry awarded himself a tally mark for Monday, since he'd managed to blow someone's mind completely before the day was over.)

"And in case it wasn't clear," said Harry, "by everyone I mean all Muggles too, not just all wizards."

"No," said the old wizard, shaking his head. His voice rose. "No, no, no! This is insanity! "

"Bwa ha ha!" said Harry.

The old wizard's face was tight with anger and worry. "Voldemort stole the book from which he gleaned his secret; it was not there when I went to look for it. But this much I know, and this much I will tell you: his immortality was born of a ritual terrible and Dark, blacker than pitchest black! And it was Myrtle, poor sweet Myrtle, who died for it; his immortality took sacrifice, it took murder - "

"Well obviously I'm not going to popularize a method of immortality that requires killing people! That would defeat the entire point! "

There was a startled pause.

Slowly the old wizard's face relaxed out of its anger, though the worry was still there. "You would use no ritual requiring human sacrifice."

"I don't know what you take me for, Headmaster, " Harry said coldly, his own anger rising, "but let's not forget that I'm the one who wants people to live! The one who wants to save everyone! You're the one who thinks death is awesome and everyone ought to die!"

"I am at a loss, Harry," said the old wizard. His feet once more began trudging across his strange office. "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!"

"You just don't want anyone to be immortal," Harry said with considerable irony. It seemed that elementary logical tautologies like All x: Die(x) = Not Exist x: Not Die(x) were beyond the reasoning abilities of the world's most powerful wizard.

The old wizard nodded. "I am less afraid than I was, but still greatly worried for you, Harry," he said quietly. His hand, a little wizened by time, but still strong, placed the crystal ball firmly back into its stand. "For the fear of death is a bitter thing, an illness of the soul by which people are twisted and warped. Voldemort is not the only Dark Wizard to go down that bleak road, though I fear he has taken it further than any before him."

"And you think you're not afraid of death?" Harry said, not even trying to mask the incredulity in his voice.

The old wizard's face was peaceful. "I am not perfect, Harry, but I think I have accepted my death as part of myself."

"Uh huh," Harry said. "See, there's this little thing called cognitive dissonance, or in plainer English, sour grapes. If people were hit on the heads with truncheons once a month, and no one could do anything about it, pretty soon there'd be all sorts of philosophers, pretending to be wise as you put it, who found all sorts of amazing benefits to being hit on the head with a truncheon once a month. Like, it makes you tougher, or it makes you happier on the days when you're not getting hit with a truncheon. But if you went up to someone who wasn't getting hit, and you asked them if they wanted to start , in exchange for those amazing benefits, they'd say no. And if you didn't have to die, if you came from somewhere that no one had ever even heard of death, and I suggested to you that it would be an amazing wonderful great idea for people to get wrinkled and old and eventually cease to exist, why, you'd have me hauled right off to a lunatic asylum! So why would anyone possibly think any thought so silly as that death is a good thing? Because you're afraid of it, because you don't really want to die, and that thought hurts so much inside you that you have to rationalize it away, do something to numb the pain, so you won't have to think about it -"