xkcd #3201: Proof Without Content
Title text:
There’s also a proof without content of a conjecture without content, but it’s left as an exercise for the reader.
Transcript:
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Source: https://xkcd.com/3201/
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There really is an XKCD for everything.
A white square still counts as content.
That blank box is a proof if and only if it is a proof. That makes it a self-reference and has no truth value.
I suppose a boltsman brain could come into existence with a proof of the Poincare conjecture in it’s mind, then poof out of existence.
Isn’t the idea of a Boltzmann Brain not that it poofs out of existence, but that there is no way to prove that you are not a Boltzmann Brain, and all of your perceived experiences could be confabulation? In such a scenario the Brain needn’t poof out of existence; merely continuing to exist for but a moment would belie the true nature of their consciousness, as the brain quickly suffocates and dies, losing its contents.
I’ve heard it both ways.
It’s far more likely you aren’t a boltsman brain and that one has never existed.
But that’s not a convincing proof.
The proof cannot exist without the conjecture.
It’s the trivial proof.
