Feb 17, 2024
The other night, I proved the Collatz conjecture in a dream.
Well, more specifically, someone else came up with a proof of the Collatz conjecture, in my dream. And in my dream, I read the argument and figured out why it didn't work.
And like it wasn't a very good argument; it's exactly the sort of sloppy argument that people present when they think they've proven the Collatz conjecture.
But what I think is interesting about this is that I remember the argument. And I remember finding the flaw in the argument. And it really was a mostly-coherent argument, and that really was the flaw in the argument! That's much more sophisticated abstract reasoning than I thought we generally got in dreams.
