Identifying with Muggles: Magic & Science in the World

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 158337

> > > bboyminn:
> > > 
> > > Fair point but one doesn't necessarily eliminate the 
> > > other. The brain is a electical instrument that is 
> > > suprebly insulated. For example, when your TV 
> > > reception  suddenly goes staticy, ... your brain 
> > > doesn't go all staticy.
> > 
> > Ken:
> > 
> > No, your brain doesn't. Neither does your computer, your
> > wristwatch, your blender, your automobile, your (insert 
> > a multitude of electronic devices here). ...
> >
> 
> bboyminn:
> 
> I'm really trying to let this go since we are not that 
> much out of sync with each other, but I can't.
> 
> My point was simply that the brain is a much more 
> resilient and more superbly insulated device that any 
> common muggle electrical or electronic device, and that 
> is true. 
> 

Ken:

Someone else has asked recently if we aren't overanalyzing things
here. Well of course we are! We don't have anything else to do while
waiting for book 7. We've all read the first 6 several times by now.
Once in a while a massive cloud deck blankets North America for
several days and suddenly all my astronomy groups get very busy and
sometimes very cranky. We are like an astronomy group that is facing
months of cloudy weather. We've got to occupy ourselves some way.

No, I don't think we are that far apart and we have similar
educational backgrounds so your opinion is as good as mine. At this
point I did list some counter-arguments that I have just snipped
before posting them because I realized that there is internal evidence
to consider.

There is a canonical reason to question the true nature of this
supposed ban on electronics at Hogwarts. Remember Harry's watch? Ron
has one too but he undoubtedly has a wizard's watch which would
certainly be mechanical if not a sundial or hourglass! Isn't Harry's
watch likely to be a Dudley castoff? Would Dudley have been wearing a
*mechanical* watch in the 1990's? Could you still get a mechanical
watch in the 1990's that wasn't a $10k Rolex? I can't imagine that
Vern and Petunia would buy Dudders a Rolex but they certainly would
buy him the latest and best normal folk's watch electronic watch.
Harry is probably lucky that Dudley wanted a new watch before he broke
the old one, otherwise I doubt that Harry would have a watch. Yet
Harry's watch worked at Hogwarts. Electronic watches have little
computer chips in them (yes even the analog ones). If Harry's watch
worked at Hogwarts so would a pocket calculator, not that a Hogwarts
student would need one. As I recall Harry's watch worked right up
until he took it for a dive in the lake. It would be ironic if Harry
got Dudley's old watch when Dudley decided he wanted one of those cool
*diver's* watches instead.

So, I don't think that the Hogwarts electronic privacy spells really
disrupt electronic devices. I think they have to act specifically on
information transmission and reception devices and then only to
scramble the content. The devices themselves remain functional. Come
to think of it doesn't Hermione say that if you turn on a radio you
hear only static? If you hear static the radio is functional, it has
to be. Electrons are flowing from the battery, through the
transistors, and into the speaker coil causing the speaker cone to
vibrate. Everything is functional, only the information coming out is
scrambled. If you can see the stars at night and the Sun by day
electromagnetic energy and the information it coveys is getting into
Hogwarts and the fact that you can see Hogwarts from the outside says
that electromagnetic energy in the form of reflected light can leave
Hogwarts. Members of the WW see the information that reflected light
conveys correctly, Muggles see a scrambled version: a rubble pile. So
what we really have here is a Muffilato spell for loudspeakers and
microphones.

It's all a bit silly really. If Rita Skeeter's Quick Quotes Quill
works why bother to disrupt a tape recorder? Wasn't this all just a
plot device so that SURPRISE! Rita could be revealed as a beetle
Animagus? Poor Sluggy is doomed to listen to those scratchy old vinyl
records on his wind-up gramaphone for no real reason. Why use an
electronic bug at Hogwarts when a flick of the wand could turn
Bellatrix into a real one?? I wonder if Fang enjoys snapping up flies
as much as our dog Luke "Flyswatter"?

Ken