Harry potter and rational thinking methods

Fan fiction based on the popular children's fairy tales? On my habr ???

Do not hurry.

There are a small number of fiction or popular science books, the author of which speaks directly about such things as the scientific method, cognitive distortion, true rationality, etc., which in fact distinguishes the scientist from other people. Even fewer of them are written interestingly. And, of course, among them there is almost no what we call fan fiction - that is, written based on some other famous work. Who will write serious things in such a frivolous form?
')
And yet, the idea is brilliant.

In fact, a scientist is a person exploring the world. The real world has been deeply explored, and it is interesting to illustrate in the process of its research what is happening in the mind of a researcher - a very difficult task. The fictional fantasy world would have been a paradise for the scientist (he would have found many logical discrepancies, hacks and gaps and would invent a lot of surprising things on their basis), but unfortunately, according to the laws of literature, the author must believe in his world and not allow conscious holes in his structure .

But if you take not your own, but an alien world? It is desirable, of course, that this world be already widely known to the public. It is good if this world is fantastic (in science fiction there will always be logical holes of the world order of different caliber). It is excellent if this world allows for the possibility of a scientist from our world getting into it.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Entirely read the original heptalogy about the adventures of a young wizard with a scar for understanding this book in general is not even necessary. But, like any fan fiction, this book is designed for a reader who has read the saga of the saga, at least in part.

The author is Eliezer Yudkovsky , the creator of the site yudkowsky.net , a transhumanist and theorist of artificial intelligence, the author of many works about various interesting properties of what is happening between your ears. Probably, he would love to make fanfic himself the main character, but alas, he has a lot to do in the muggle world. Therefore, Mr. Potter himself will act as a scientist.

Harry Potter is a Wunderkind. In this story, he was lucky with his stepfather, a professor, so now he has a good scientific background and education. The bugs and errors of the wizarding world will be examined with all their mercilessness. The Bayesian theorem, Occam's razor, information theory, theory of intellect, experimental psychology, philosophy of transhumanism, and other things that are much more interesting than Rowling’s invented world will play the role of tools of knowledge. Certain other characters will have to be changed, of course, to make them more relevant to Rational Harry. For example, This-As-His-There-Name. In the end, the world should not give up to the researcher too easily, right?

It will be fun.

Fan fiction partially translated into Russian . There are more chapters in the English version , but it has not been written to the end yet. Anyway - read! By the way, besides the deeply touched scientific topic there is wonderful humor.