Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Perhaps my mathematical education was neither abstract nor thorough
> enough but this article looks to me to be making a great todo about
> relatively little. In particular I find many of its stabs at the
> implications to be utterly unjustified by the rest of the article'ss
> contents. It looks like sensationalism and bad science reporting.
>
> Would someone like to take a go at a more seasoned evaluation of this
> piece?
Hm; on due consideration, I find many of its stabs at the implications to
be utterly unjustified. It looks like sensationalism and bad science
reporting.
Except for the idea that the Goldbach Conjecture (NOT the Riemann
Hypothesis, as stated in the article) might be true but TOTALLY
unproveable (i.e., the consequence of an infinite number of independent
mathematical facts). I've heard this hypothesized before in connection
with Chaitin's work, and I find it both plausible and chilling.
Hope this helps.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
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