> It's just a useful idea we have to say there is zero something to designate a lack of something. But there isn't zero water in nature, anymore than there are

> It's just a useful idea we have to say there is zero something to designate a lack of something. But there isn't zero water in nature, anymore than there are zero unicorns, or zero Kings of France. That's just confusion on your part. All of language is just a useful idea we have to designate whatever we designate with it, and you are just confusing things for no reason at all. You obviously understand what "zero something" means, and that what it means is indeed something that can describe aspects of reality, and then you go on and claim that somehow it doesn't. When I say "there are 0 ml of water in this bottle", you understand what it means, right? And if there is indeed no water in the bottle, what is there to be confused about? It does mean that there is no water in the bottle, but it also means something else at the same time? Or there is no water in the bottle, but there is also not no water in the bottle? > The things we have zero of are infinite. But you don't actually have zero pink elephants in your backyard. Yes, I actually have. "having zero <whatevers>" is, as you evidently know, a synonym for "having no <whatevers>" or "not having <whatevers>", and I absolutely certainly actually do not have pink elephants in my backyard. > So if we were to label to cars in increasing numeric order from one end to the other, we would start with 0 instead of 1 at the first car? There is no such thing as "we would start". You can start wherever you want. That is, as derefr has already explained to you, an exercise in assigning serial numbers. You can use whatever numbering scheme you like. Obviously. Some might be more useful than others, though. > We don't do that with building levels. You enter on the first floor, go to the elevator, and you push a button for the floor level. The first floor is 1. 0 Would be the basement level. Except you don't enter on the first floor. The "first" thing in any order is defined to be the thing without a predecessor. Obviously, if there is a basement, the ground floor is not the first floor, because the basement precedes it. Just because the ground floor is commonly called the "first floor" for historical reasons, doesn't make it the mathematically first floor.