crystalsnow said:
Okay, I understand where you are coming from, and I truly do consider it a great train of thought. However, while intelligent, it is misguided. In the case of your 'apple particle' idea, you are applying too much maths (I know right; too much maths? no such thing!). An apple is an entirety, and a common misconception (or perhaps just a lazy way of verbalising reality) is that a former piece of apple that is no longer an apple is merely a fraction of an apple. This is, in fact, a mistake. It is like the difference between spiritual truths and actual truths; while both contain the word 'truth' that doesn't mean they are both true. Now if we apply the same concept to 'half-eaten apple' and 'apple'; while both contain the word 'apple', the former is not an apple, but merely uses the term to describe a new entirety. So when you say "there is an apple particle and therefore 0.00000000001 apples" it is incorrect. While it is a good way to convey a message, the particle is not an apple, as an apple is a whole. Think of it like this, a carbon atom is not 0.2 methane particles, it is a carbon atom, and a methane, while containing carbon, is not carbon. I feel like I'm explaining this section badly, but my main point is that your example uses a poor analogy, as an 'apple particle' is not an apple.
As for seeing '0 cats'. If there is no cat in your vision right now, you are seeing 0 cats, because 0 cats is an absence of cats, and therefore, if you see a lack of cats, you are seeing 0 cats. The idea of 0 is that it perfectly describes the number of an object present. The best way I can describe it (through the use of what I presume is an analogy) is this.
Action and inaction are merely two words used to describe components of an existential whole: "action". While the component and the whole share a name, they are not identical, as the component is misconstrued to mean a motion, or changing event which produces results, whilst an inaction is used to describe a motionless occurence. However, an inaction is merely a form of action, as it is a degree to which someone reacts, just with zero motion. Once aagin, I feel that my wording fails to capture the concept properly, but the idea is that an absence of something (zero quantity) is merely a unit of measurement (a number) just as three of something is a unit of measurement. What I'm trying to say is that an absence of something and the presence of something are merely two components of the whole (the whole being "existence" and the components being ways in which they are measured).
So yeah, zero is a number, just as one, two, negative eight and every other one is. The only issue is that people seek to form black and white distinctions between these things, rather than experiencing the entirety of the concept.
