Cole Sayer

Bio: Born Nashville, TN.

Artist Statement

Write something about something.

THE EXISTENTIAL RISK OF MATHEMATICAL ERROR

Mathematical mistake or error-rates limit our

understanding of rare risks (philosophy,

transhumanism, statistics)

created: 20 Jul 2012; modified: 26 Feb 2015;

status: draft; belief: likely

See also “Confidence levels inside and

outside an argument”

Mathematical error has been rarely examined

except as a possibility and motivating reason

for research into formal methods; Gaifman

2004 claims.

An agent might even have beliefs that logically contradict

each other. Mersenne believed that 267-1 is a prime number,

which was proved false in 1903, cf. Bell (1951). [The

factorization, discovered by Cole, is: 193,707,721 ×

761,838,257,287.]...Now, there is no shortage of deductive

errors and of false mathematical beliefs. Mersenne’s is one

of the most known in a rich history of mathematical errors,

involving very prominent figures (cf. De Millo et al. 1979,

269-270). The explosion in the number of mathematical

publications and research reports has been accompanied by a

similar explosion in erroneous claims; on the whole, errors

are noted by small groups of experts in the area, and many go

unheeded. There is nothing philosophically interesting that

can be said about such failures.

— Gwern, http://www.gwern.net

Xiaoshi Vivian Vivian Qin