E-Book
I really enjoyed this e-book. I was reading about Bayes Rule and stumbled across the essay An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes’ Theorem. From there I found the LessWrong website which had a link intriguingly entitled The Methods of Rationality. After a little more research I found the hpmor.com website and downloaded an epub version of the book.
The premise of the book is an alternate Harry Potter reality where rather than being raised by a cruel and ignorant aunt and uncle, instead a highly educated aunt and uncle train him in the scientific method and they emphasize a highly rational approach to the world. When Harry is introduced to the world of magic it shakes his fundamental assumptions about how the universe works. Nevertheless, he sets out to understand this strange new world of magic using rational thinking and scientific methods.
This is a huge book with a word count of 661,619 - for reference, the total word count in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series is 1,084,170. I personally found the quality of the writing and plot to be very high, with many genuinely exciting scenes. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool Harry Potter fan, be prepared for many of your character assumptions to be challenged or overturned. And if you’re a Ron Weasley fan, then don’t bother with this book.
There are certain viewpoints that the author, Eliezer Yudkowsky , asserts through the novel that I disagree with - in particular, the notion of death being the main enemy to overcome. Somehow, that seems a somewhat unjustifiable stand from a rational perspective.
Overall, if you are science nerd but still enjoyed the original Harry Potter series, I think you’ll love this alternate version.