Is zero anything?
The Dalai Lama1 says you cannot count without a zero. You start with zero and then add various numbers, 1, 2, 3 etc, to count. Zero is a kind of basis, a fundamental value.
This seems quite reasonable, but has very deep implications. Is it true? After all, children are never taught to count starting with zero; many languages historically even had no word for zero.
Let us suppose that we count 1 orange, two oranges, three oranges ... This seems to imply that for a start there were zero oranges, but why should there not have been zero lemons? Or was it something quite different, a kind of universal zero which could have been anything? And simultaneously?! We would think that one orange could not simultaneously be one lemon, but this strange zero seems to be a simultaneous infinity of potential zeroes of absolutely anything!
So zero times infinity seems to be something, at least philosophically. At least for the Dalai Lama.
But it is not a mathematical something. In maths, zero multiplied by anything is a zero. It rather appears that in maths, zero is a vast monster vacuum cleaner which brings to nothing anything which exists. The infinitely weak destroys the infinitely powerful. But if we add a positive number to zero we have something and remove the power of nothing. But can we subtract from zero and have anything? Does a negative number remain non-existent even if subtracted or multiplied?
In the beginning was nothing? If so, there would not even be counting. How then do we account for the things which are? Can nothing lead to something? Surely nothing itself cannot teach us to count.
Is there an alternative to starting with zero?
There is: In the beginning God2……. There is a one at the start. Which is pre-existing God. but then there is a first day, second day, third day. There is counting. And look hard at this counting; it is very good.
1. https://quotefancy.com/quote/790993/Dalai-Lama-XIV-A-zero-itself-is-nothing-but-without-a-zero-you-cannot-count-anything. (accessed 6-March-2023)
2. Genesis 1:1