Indeed, you can't ever present a mortal like me with evidence that has a likelihood ratio of a googolplex to one - evidence I'm a googolplex times more likely to encounter if the hypothesis is true, than if it's false - because the chance of all my neurons spontaneously rearranging themselves to fake the same evidence would always be higher than one over googolplex. You know the old saying about how once you assign something probability one, or probability zero, you can never change your mind regardless of what evidence you see? Well, odds of a googolplex to one, or one to a googolplex, work pretty much the same way."
On the other hand, if I am dreaming, or drugged, or crazy, then it DOESN'T MATTER what I decide to do in this situation. I will still be trapped in my dream or delusion, and I won't actually be five dollars poorer because you and I aren't really here. So I may as well discount all probability lines in which the evidence I'm seeing isn't a valid representation of an underlying reality. Here's your $5.
Student: What is truth? And what is God?
Teacher: You don't really want an answer to that question.
Student: Yes, I do. Please.
Teacher (after thinking for a moment): If I take a lamp and shine it toward a wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often, we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the goal of the search. It is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it.
[All the students are looking on with blank faces]
Teacher: Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him...sees nothing. What we perceive as God is the byproduct of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do. Or we turn to look at our shadow and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty... and all its flaws... and in so doing better understand the world around us.
Student: Ah...yes...but... What is truth? And what is God?
Teacher (rolls eyes): Truth is... a river.
[amazed looks and murmurs from the students]
Student: And god?
Teacher: God is the mouth of the river.
[pleased expressions and excited exclamations among the students, Teacher facepalms]
I thought it was a goose.
King: Very clever. (to the guards) set him free from the top of the tallest tower.
No, If the king REALLY wanted to be a dick, he would have put the key and the dagger in the same box, and then said "one box contains a key, and one box contains a dagger."
Actually, it has occurred to me that maybe he doesn't need his body back, because he never lost it. He's not wearing a turban to cover two-facedness, and Harry's "recovered" memory from his infancy may have been the result of a false memory charm. In this continuity, can we really be sure that Quirrel is a separate person that Voldie is using, or maybe he is just Voldie in disguise?
The Command to Look, by William Mortenson, might be enlightening to Slytherins. Even though it's about photography, you can learn things about how your personal appearance can be crafted to inspire the emotions in people that you want to.
But, if his plan is that his soul be sent to another world, he does not need his body back, does he?
Hi. Just found HPMoR and read it all, and please forgive me if anyone had raised this before in the thousands upon thousands of comments that I haven't taken the time to read...
I think I've figured out some Important Things that are going on here.
1) How harry survived the Killing Curse.
Right after the Incident With the Fake Summoning Ritual, we learned about a reference class of magic in which the practitioner first specifies a thing they are willing to sacrifice, and then a thing they expect to receive in exchange. Reviewing Harry's memory of his mother's death in light of this, I realized that Lily stated that she was willing to offer her life in exchange for Harry's safety, and VOLDEMORT AGREED!
2)WTF is Quirrelmort doing? It seems like he is befriending Harry and not trying to kill him.
Rational!Voldemort is very interested in space travel and wants to visit other worlds. He placed his horcrux aboard the Pioneer probe not to insure it could never be found and destroyed, but as part of a plan to move his consciousness to other worlds. When he heard of Trelawney's prophesy, R!V went to mark Harry as his equal so that Harry could eventually destroy all but a remnant of him, using a power that R!V knows not, resulting in their two souls not being in the same world.
I don't understand why he needs Bellatrix for this, but I think he is being honest about having given up on being Dark Lord and wanting Harry to take that role. I think he really likes Harry, and genuinely sees them as having a lot in common, almost like Harry is his surrogate son.
Also, he supported Harry's decision not to reveal the secrets of the True Patronus because he NEEDS Harry to have/use a power that he himself knows not, and also doesn't want Dumbledore to have it.
Perhaps I should say ...in which I can't reasonably expect to GET evidence entangled with an underlying reality.