4 ms·

> It’s like an extra level of abstraction away from the world around you Is it? I ate all the apples. There are no more apples left. There are zero apples. Don

> It’s like an extra level of abstraction away from the world around you Is it? I ate all the apples. There are no more apples left. There are zero apples. Don’t we come face to face with nothing left all the time? There are zero guests left. There are zero episodes of the show to watch. There are zero days until Christmas. There is zero money in my wallet.

paganel 2y ago
> There are zero apples. "are" and "zero", meaning non-existence/non-"are"-ness, in the same sentence is seen as strange by many, yes, and that include me.
- cwmoore 2y ago
  You can have zero of everything in the same place and time.
  - paganel 2y ago
    Which helps make my point, i.e. your Parmenidian view on this problem.
ulfbert_inc 2y ago
>There are no more apples left. There are zero apples. These are not equivalent statements though. You simply learned at some early age zero represents absence, but that is not a natural concept.
- pflenker 2y ago
  To add to that: After you eat all the apples, the following statements are true: - there are no apples left - there are 0 apples - there are 0 oranges The following statement does not apply though: - there are no oranges left … as this implies that there have been oranges available at some time before.
  - amelius 2y ago
    But that last statement has more to do with the word "left" than with "zero".
    - pflenker 2y ago
      True - the point I am trying to underscore is that the concept of 0 is not the same as counting down and arriving at „nothing“. These are two related, but not equal, concepts.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    In both of your examples, 0 is the result of a counting operation. Only what is counted differs. "There are 0 apples left." is the answer to the question "How many apples are left?". "There are 0 oranges." is the answer to the question "How many oranges are on the table?" (or "in the box" or wherever). Everywhere where 0 appears in speech, it is the result of a counting or measuring operation, which provides the answer to a question, expressed or implied. That counting or measuring operation could have had any other number as its result, instead of 0, which demonstrates that the nature of 0 is the same as that of any other cardinal number, i.e. it is a quantity (term introduced already by Aristotle, in his "Categories", where the various kinds of concepts and the words that name them were classified by the kinds of questions to which they provide answers).
    - pflenker 2y ago
      That is true, but missing the point made by the parent comment. Being familiar with 0, we can clearly see how it follows from counting down. We fail to see why this would be ever difficult, since we’re so used to this concept. However, this does not match the reality of how we learn about 0. Children learn 0 conceptually way after learning to count, because the concept is trickier to grasp.
      - adrian_b 2y ago
        What you say about children is true and I have already said in my first comment that the structure of the words meaning "zero" in most old recorded languages indicates that the concept of "zero" must be more recent than the concepts of the other small numbers and of negation. Nevertheless, even if the concept of zero has been understood later than the concepts of 1, 2, 3 ..., it has still been understood in many places at least four thousand to five thousand years ago, i.e. already by the time of the oldest writings that have been preserved and thousands of years before the invention of the positional system of writing numbers, where the importance of zero has greatly increased and where it has required a dedicated graphic symbol.
Asraelite 2y ago
When there is one (or more) of something, you can observe the thing to say what there is one of. I see an apple, I can say "one apple". When there is zero of something, what is there zero of? That question becomes a lot more difficult to answer. In theory you could say there is zero of anything not observed, but this isn't a very precise or useful definition and isn't what's done in practice. The things we choose to actively describe there being zero of depends on knowledge of what existed previously, on cultural and linguistics norms, on context etc. For example, I can say "there are zero apples in the basket", but this requires me to know that there previously existed apples in the basket as opposed to oranges, or that the addressee of my statement was expecting apples to be there. This knowledge wouldn't be required if there was at least one apple. Using zero fundamentally requires more mental reasoning than using small positive integers.
- loa_in_ 2y ago
  Level 1: There's something or there's nothing Level 2 if there's something: There's one or more of this thing and it's not going to transform into same amount of something different.
  - ForOldHack 2y ago
    You seem to have escaped cultural zeros. In Hitchhikers guide... You must prove to Marvin, that you are intelligent, by having tea and no tea, at the same time. A paradox and a cultural reference . Also with stolen paintings: you have no painting,but you have evidence of it's existence. And lastly, in song: "can't buy me love." And of course physics: T(sub) 0. As well as space flight: t-zero.
  - BobaFloutist 2y ago
    If I have one apple I still have zero oranges.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > When there is zero of something, what is there zero of? That question becomes a lot more difficult to answer. > Using zero fundamentally requires more mental reasoning than using small positive integers. I disagree. Positive integers don't exist in a vacuum either. You always start with a context -- the thing you're counting -- and then you are given a number. Whether 3 or 0. I see no greater conceptual complexity in either case. I think the flaw is in your sentence: > This knowledge wouldn't be required if there was at least one apple. Yes it is required. We're not comparing the statements "0 apples" and "1", we're comparing "0 apples" and "1 apple".
Drakim 2y ago
Five apples is not the same as five oranges, but zero apples is the same as zero oranges. After all, what would be difference between a whole bunch of nothing and another whole bunch of nothing? Zero is typeless, which makes it unique and not just another quantity.
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  Zero oranges is different from zero apples, because you can have ten apples and zero oranges.
  - thfuran 2y ago
    I have ten apples sitting right next to zero apples.
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
There are zero horses in my room. The absence of something is a default condition.

paganel 2y ago

> There are zero apples. "are" and "zero", meaning non-existence/non-"are"-ness, in the same sentence is seen as strange by many, yes, and that include me.

cwmoore 2y ago
You can have zero of everything in the same place and time.
- paganel 2y ago
  Which helps make my point, i.e. your Parmenidian view on this problem.

ulfbert_inc 2y ago

>There are no more apples left. There are zero apples. These are not equivalent statements though. You simply learned at some early age zero represents absence, but that is not a natural concept.

pflenker 2y ago
To add to that: After you eat all the apples, the following statements are true: - there are no apples left - there are 0 apples - there are 0 oranges The following statement does not apply though: - there are no oranges left … as this implies that there have been oranges available at some time before.
- amelius 2y ago
  But that last statement has more to do with the word "left" than with "zero".
  - pflenker 2y ago
    True - the point I am trying to underscore is that the concept of 0 is not the same as counting down and arriving at „nothing“. These are two related, but not equal, concepts.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  In both of your examples, 0 is the result of a counting operation. Only what is counted differs. "There are 0 apples left." is the answer to the question "How many apples are left?". "There are 0 oranges." is the answer to the question "How many oranges are on the table?" (or "in the box" or wherever). Everywhere where 0 appears in speech, it is the result of a counting or measuring operation, which provides the answer to a question, expressed or implied. That counting or measuring operation could have had any other number as its result, instead of 0, which demonstrates that the nature of 0 is the same as that of any other cardinal number, i.e. it is a quantity (term introduced already by Aristotle, in his "Categories", where the various kinds of concepts and the words that name them were classified by the kinds of questions to which they provide answers).
  - pflenker 2y ago
    That is true, but missing the point made by the parent comment. Being familiar with 0, we can clearly see how it follows from counting down. We fail to see why this would be ever difficult, since we’re so used to this concept. However, this does not match the reality of how we learn about 0. Children learn 0 conceptually way after learning to count, because the concept is trickier to grasp.
    - adrian_b 2y ago
      What you say about children is true and I have already said in my first comment that the structure of the words meaning "zero" in most old recorded languages indicates that the concept of "zero" must be more recent than the concepts of the other small numbers and of negation. Nevertheless, even if the concept of zero has been understood later than the concepts of 1, 2, 3 ..., it has still been understood in many places at least four thousand to five thousand years ago, i.e. already by the time of the oldest writings that have been preserved and thousands of years before the invention of the positional system of writing numbers, where the importance of zero has greatly increased and where it has required a dedicated graphic symbol.

Asraelite 2y ago

When there is one (or more) of something, you can observe the thing to say what there is one of. I see an apple, I can say "one apple". When there is zero of something, what is there zero of? That question becomes a lot more difficult to answer. In theory you could say there is zero of anything not observed, but this isn't a very precise or useful definition and isn't what's done in practice. The things we choose to actively describe there being zero of depends on knowledge of what existed previously, on cultural and linguistics norms, on context etc. For example, I can say "there are zero apples in the basket", but this requires me to know that there previously existed apples in the basket as opposed to oranges, or that the addressee of my statement was expecting apples to be there. This knowledge wouldn't be required if there was at least one apple. Using zero fundamentally requires more mental reasoning than using small positive integers.

loa_in_ 2y ago
Level 1: There's something or there's nothing Level 2 if there's something: There's one or more of this thing and it's not going to transform into same amount of something different.
- ForOldHack 2y ago
  You seem to have escaped cultural zeros. In Hitchhikers guide... You must prove to Marvin, that you are intelligent, by having tea and no tea, at the same time. A paradox and a cultural reference . Also with stolen paintings: you have no painting,but you have evidence of it's existence. And lastly, in song: "can't buy me love." And of course physics: T(sub) 0. As well as space flight: t-zero.
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  If I have one apple I still have zero oranges.
crazygringo 2y ago
> When there is zero of something, what is there zero of? That question becomes a lot more difficult to answer. > Using zero fundamentally requires more mental reasoning than using small positive integers. I disagree. Positive integers don't exist in a vacuum either. You always start with a context -- the thing you're counting -- and then you are given a number. Whether 3 or 0. I see no greater conceptual complexity in either case. I think the flaw is in your sentence: > This knowledge wouldn't be required if there was at least one apple. Yes it is required. We're not comparing the statements "0 apples" and "1", we're comparing "0 apples" and "1 apple".

Drakim 2y ago

Five apples is not the same as five oranges, but zero apples is the same as zero oranges. After all, what would be difference between a whole bunch of nothing and another whole bunch of nothing? Zero is typeless, which makes it unique and not just another quantity.

BobaFloutist 2y ago
Zero oranges is different from zero apples, because you can have ten apples and zero oranges.
- thfuran 2y ago
  I have ten apples sitting right next to zero apples.

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

There are zero horses in my room. The absence of something is a default condition.