Zero divided by Zero equals 0 & 1 & ∞

[Obvious Leo]

Yet you deny that any number is real to nature because it is itself an abstraction.

This is not what I said, Scott. I said that a number cannot be said to be real in the absence of a physical referent. A five has no meaning but five apples does.

I understand, for instance how the acceptance of zero itself was vehemently fought against time and time again.

Zero was fought against on metaphysical grounds and was therefore not used in Pythagorean mathematics but the Hindus learnt how to use it symbolically and passed this knowledge on to the Persians, through which it ultimately found its way into Europe after the crusades. Unfortunately the mathematical philosophy of the Persians did not accompany the mathematical tools of the Persians into the cloistered houses of European learning because these were polluted by Platonism as embellished through Aquinas. A have no problem with the use of zero as a mathematical placeholder but I stop short of agreeing that nothing is something, or indeed that infinity is something, which is what Newton did. If philosophy is to have any meaning at all then something and nothing must be regarded as mutually exclusive conceptual constructs, which was the canon orthodoxy of the pre-Socratics.

But you also deny time as having two directions.

I'll be willing to change my mind when you give me an example of a cause being preceded by its effect.

If this was the case, you could never speak of ANY past of your present as even had existed.

How does this follow? The past is that which used to exist, the future is that which is yet to exist and the present is that which currently exists. This is is hardly rocket science, mate, and as far as I can judge the matter you're simply looking for a complication where no complication exists. The fact that we can only observe the past is relevant to physics because it means it is always utterly impossible to observe the real world but this is only incidental to this specific argument.

I recognize your reasoning is NOT unique.

It absolutely isn't. There isn't a single major school of philosophy which says otherwise and the fact that the current models of physics do say otherwise is highly unpersuasive since these models are mutually exclusive and collectively make no fucking sense. Newton has a lot to answer for.

"Space-time" is appropriate for the fourth dimension as it both explains the fact that space expands

Bullshit. It explains no such thing. Space has no physical properties and is thus incapable of performing such a miraculous feat. The so-called "expanding space" of spacetime physics is a mathematical statement and not a physical one, except to a logical positivist zealot who assumes the right to redefine what making sense means.

One unit expansion per 'second' represents both the Volume of additional space of expansion AND this in turn requires change of one set or frame of a three-dimensional world to BECOME another.

I know perfectly well how the spacetime paradigm is meant to be interpreted but I reject it on the grounds of Occam economy. Instead of being interwoven space and time can instead be regarded as mutually exclusive and then none of these metaphysical absurdities need to be acknowledged. Reality is simply itself becoming and needs no spatial stage on which to perform, other than that which is constructed in the consciousness of the observer.

I see that you have a problem with infinities.

No I don't. I know exactly what Infinity is. Infinity is an abstract construct which can be used to define the way a physical system tends. It cannot be used to define the actual state of a physical system because the universe is informationally closed and in accordance with Cantorian set theory an infinite set cannot be confined within a finite one.

[Philosophy Explorer]

I gave my input before. Here is what Wolfram MathWorld (the top math website) says:

http://www.businessinsider.com/top-ques ... 015-12?amp

PhilX

[Scott Mayers]

Yet you deny that any number is real to nature because it is itself an abstraction.

This is not what I said, Scott. I said that a number cannot be said to be real in the absence of a physical referent. A five has no meaning but five apples does.

Yes, "Five apples" does just as "Five dogs" does, and "Five days" does, etc. These are 'specific' or 'special' cases which get 'generalized' as "Five X, where X stands for any one thing (a unit)". So numbers are adjectives. You deny they are nouns.

But all adjectives mean nothing if they don't refer to a noun counterpart based on REAL experience. For instance, a "red car" has 'red' as the adjective. While you may deny 'red' as meaning anything special in the object itself, it is still an indirect hint that something of the object creates that appearance. Otherwise, you'd have to default to assuming even anything you experience personally is equally 'unReal', even the objects themselves!

Every REAL thing can be broken down (reduced) to be described in an expanded form to illustrate its components. But you seem to believe that there is an irreducible noun that anything is limited to that remains fixed and real. Take the word, "car". It can be broken down to mean "a container that carries things from one place to another". So you have "container" now as the noun, and the rest of the phrase as an adjective. This might be summarized in two words to help clarify the two ideas as, "carrying (or transporting) container". So would you deny the adjective, "carrying (transporting)" as unreal but ''container" as real?

Numbers ARE real OR you have to accept that even anything you experience in life is equally 'unreal'. And if you select a place to 'stop' by begging some fixed atomic unit, you still have to prove that even ONE thing is any more real too. AND, it cannot be divisible into any further components. This is not different than one preferring to define "God" as the ultimate cause of reality by simply defining it as the atomic 'stop' to prevent infinite regress of causes.

An adjective means ad- (to add) by jecture ("throwing it out there", an old root that reflected any action from our hunting days first used to describe words too.) It is a FORM, as in "Five _____" where the blank line represents a variable.

Now, note that WHEN an adjective is combined with a noun, even if it is not defined specifically, the phrase collecting the two is also a noun. So "Five dogs" itself is a noun and a referent to a real 'thing'. It only is written in a way that emphasizes its parts. The same can be said of something like, a "dumb person" which may be summarized with a new word, "idiot", where both mean the same and real thing.

I understand, for instance how the acceptance of zero itself was vehemently fought against time and time again.

Zero was fought against on metaphysical grounds and was therefore not used in Pythagorean mathematics but the Hindus learnt how to use it symbolically and passed this knowledge on to the Persians, through which it ultimately found its way into Europe after the crusades. Unfortunately the mathematical philosophy of the Persians did not accompany the mathematical tools of the Persians into the cloistered houses of European learning because these were polluted by Platonism as embellished through Aquinas. A have no problem with the use of zero as a mathematical placeholder but I stop short of agreeing that nothing is something, or indeed that infinity is something, which is what Newton did. If philosophy is to have any meaning at all then something and nothing must be regarded as mutually exclusive conceptual constructs, which was the canon orthodoxy of the pre-Socratics.

We lost much information through the Dark Ages only because is was both hidden and destroyed as dangerous thinking. Zero was not necessarily unfounded through the Greeks to which was as much likely destroyed purposely by the Christian Church for your own thinking too. That is, people feared the idea of zero because the philosophy surrounding it logically demonstrates its reality. If people were to think that we could have evolved with no cause (from nothing), this eliminates even an 'atom' such as God, to depend on as the source of all reality. So don't think that the ancients had somehow JUSTLY interpreted nothing to be non-existent. Nor is this opinion universal, contrary to your opinion unless you simply define "all philosophers" are never those who propose the existence of nothing.

But you also deny time as having two directions.

I'll be willing to change my mind when you give me an example of a cause being preceded by its effect.

I don't believe so if you maintain your metalogical assumptions without addressing. You make much ado against the logical positivists who intended to find a means to definitively find a logic that is universally consistent and complete. Godel used his Incompleteness Theorem to prove that not such formal system of reasoning can be both complete and consistent at the same time about ALL of reality (through logic or math).

This is what defeated "logical positivists" specifically because they had assumed that there was a universal logic that is 'consistent and complete'. Note that this does NOT mean that there is not 'inconsistent' logic that can be used, however. It is this to which I differ on the traditional logical positivists. The concern was that if you allow inconsistent logic to be 'true', it would appear to prove anything and everything 'true'. I believe this was in err because regardless, since the Incompleteness theorem assures consistent and complete logic is impossible, we only HAVE the alternative that reality requires an 'inconsistent' logic to be true.

I don't believe simply any rationale will do, however. But if absolute nothingness is assumed, it can be interpreted that at that assumption, while it may be 'inconsistent' with respect our initial inspection, since such an essence could NOT have any concern even for 'laws' that assure consistency, then at that point, anything DOES go. Only when or where totality has both consistency AND inconsistency, is it able to provide worlds where any possible arrangement is 'true'. To us, we are in a contingent world that is locally consistent, but inconsistent as a whole. "Contingent" literally means that we have a world that contains at least something 'true' AND something 'not true' as very REAL factors. As such, while you may think that 'nothing' is 'not true', this does not mean that it lies outside of reality. We actually require it to define what is contingently real.

If this was the case, you could never speak of ANY past of your present as even had existed.

How does this follow? The past is that which used to exist, the future is that which is yet to exist and the present is that which currently exists. This is is hardly rocket science, mate, and as far as I can judge the matter you're simply looking for a complication where no complication exists. The fact that we can only observe the past is relevant to physics because it means it is always utterly impossible to observe the real world but this is only incidental to this specific argument.

You cannot say the 'future' is any more real than the 'past' because you only experience the 'present' (a zero relative to yourself!). You may believe that the 'past' is real, but in fact, since you even deny that time only has a forward direction, than you can't even trust what you determine is the 'past'. You actually only contain data in memory that you infer is the past. In fact, the future with respect to what you can contain is just as rational to say has less existence than the 'past' since you cannot contain it -- you do not have it in your mind already. So the 'future' is as equally unreal if you are to be fair (consistent) and logical. This leaves only your 'present' to be certain of that exists. THIS is what your 'zero' is. And since it has meaning, at least more than both the future and the past, zero is a more real factor than anything else.

And you can't dismiss this 'zero' (as the present) or any other number, as simply some 'referent' as if you also define "referent" as unreal. But you're welcome to. But then notice how this then leaves you with nothing to define your preference to describe time as real because is too is based on referents. And it is THIS fact to why time is interpreted as a dimension just as space, made up of 'referents'. Abstractions are merely a shorthand way of summarizing (generalizing) the set of variable things without having to list each and every particular instance of them in nature. But it doesn't mean it is not real. It is just unable to be 'completely' described without enumerating for each particular instance. And where there are an infinity of them, impossible. This is the same thing again as the Incompleteness theorem.

I recognize your reasoning is NOT unique.

It absolutely isn't. There isn't a single major school of philosophy which says otherwise and the fact that the current models of physics do say otherwise is highly unpersuasive since these models are mutually exclusive and collectively make no fucking sense. Newton has a lot to answer for.

I am fairly interpreting your language here as only about your personality and not a reflection of your literal intentional meaning. Newton had no responsibility to any 'ownership' of zero or infinity. You like Leibniz, who in sync with Newton, developed Calculus, which is the math of dealing with zeros and infinities to determine specific truths about reality. Newton is KNOWN specifically for his contribution to mechanics which is still as valid today as it was then. All that had happened since him was to extend the concept of "momentum" to define force using "acceleration" instead. It didn't make him wrong in the least. The inclusion of defining force in terms of acceleration made it better to create a derived concept, "energy", to connect all physical reality together under a common them beyond simply gravity itself. And the only other extension is to have added the fixed speed of things to which he had not, nor had enough incentive at the time to bother with prior to Faraday and Maxwell.

And the ONLY derogatory use of which I've heard one call, Newtonian, beyond these is to the fact that he DIDN'T use time as a fourth dimension, which should more than appeal to your thinking than not. So I don't agree with your concerns against Newton or his thinking.

"Space-time" is appropriate for the fourth dimension as it both explains the fact that space expands

Bullshit. It explains no such thing. Space has no physical properties and is thus incapable of performing such a miraculous feat. The so-called "expanding space" of spacetime physics is a mathematical statement and not a physical one, except to a logical positivist zealot who assumes the right to redefine what making sense means.

I can assure you that you and not me, is in the minority on this. Today's physicists have reintroduced the idea of the aether. The true 'vacuum' is not even space itself. In essence, while still 'true', these are the points in space that collectively make up space in 3 and more dimensions that we DO sense as real. If the points that make up space is not real while what it creates is (volume), then this only adds more force to the idea that everything is derived FROM nothing(s) (an infinity of them) itself.

One unit expansion per 'second' represents both the Volume of additional space of expansion AND this in turn requires change of one set or frame of a three-dimensional world to BECOME another.

I know perfectly well how the spacetime paradigm is meant to be interpreted but I reject it on the grounds of Occam economy. Instead of being interwoven space and time can instead be regarded as mutually exclusive and then none of these metaphysical absurdities need to be acknowledged. Reality is simply itself becoming and needs no spatial stage on which to perform, other than that which is constructed in the consciousness of the observer.

With respect, I'm dubious of the use of "Occam" economy as it is too often used. The 'simplest' explanation is "God". So I hate how this even gets used by my peers in skepticism as if it has somehow some unique 'truth' that is somehow different. This was also already understood by everyone throughout history. But they were not deluded into thinking that the "shortest route" to some goal is ALL that is true or appropriate. If the "shortest route" between two points is 20 meters, while being the 'simplest' as a straight line, realistically, you may not be able to take that route in practice. (There could be something in between preventing you from using it) Also, the simplest route is NOT the same as meaning the ONLY route.

I see that you have a problem with infinities.

No I don't. I know exactly what Infinity is. Infinity is an abstract construct which can be used to define the way a physical system tends. It cannot be used to define the actual state of a physical system because the universe is informationally closed and in accordance with Cantorian set theory an infinite set cannot be confined within a finite one.

I see your problem is that you don't accept a variable itself as real unless it is replaced with its values as a constant. You make a serious logical error. Here is a (Occam-like) example:

Assume only the domain of possible things that some X can be defined as are a or b. To you, you think that it illegal to say that X is real because it doesn't particularly specify WHAT it is. But if one says that X is real, they mean that a and b are real without specifying which one is being used at any specific moment. For instance, a could be "Leo exists" and b could be "Leo does not exist"; If I then say that X is 'true', do you deny this because it is an abstraction that means either "Leo exists" or "Leo does not exist" as a collective truth?

[Arising_uk]

...

We lost much information through the Dark Ages only because is was both hidden and destroyed as dangerous thinking. ...

Think this a bit of common wishful myth as historically all the 'Dark Ages' means is that we have scant historical records, so imputing motives is dubious at best.

[Scott Mayers]

...

We lost much information through the Dark Ages only because is was both hidden and destroyed as dangerous thinking. ...

Think this a bit of common wishful myth as historically all the 'Dark Ages' means is that we have scant historical records, so imputing motives is dubious at best.

You may be right. I'm doing this with bias of my own interpretations intuitively by my experience in learning of history across a broad spectrum of areas. Take it as speculation or a conjecture for now. The point is that the "Dark Ages" was named for some reason. And it was about the very discovery of much of the lost or forgotten works and records that got leaked through the Moors (European Muslim connections). We do know other indirect evidence of mass destructions and censorships (like the Vatican's secretive library, for instance) which keeps us from knowing 'something'. But while while we are ignorant of them specifically, we can rationally infer them even knowing how present-day psychology/sociology of people have done this in our known records.

Zero, is such a rationally obvious concept even if we don't consider it 'real' or use it officially. It is the negation of "at least (something)". And so it had to have been understood more than even our recorded history will obviously assert. Egypt's gods, Nun and Nut, are both derivative hints of this. Even though we don't have direct 'proof' of this, it is a reasonable conjecture based on a multitude of indirect evidence. Knowing that the 'kinds' of evidence that does get repressed or destroyed often relates to one's posited forms that DO get recorded too.

For one simple example on the top of my head, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno. Certainly even this isn't necessary . The very fact that any religion, especially as universally enforced through this era, posits an empathetic living or human-like Supreme Being is sufficiently threatened by the concept of an origin in nothingness which would include the concept of zero, as it must inevitably lead to at least someone raising the question of nothing to be meaningful.

[Hobbes' Choice]

...

We lost much information through the Dark Ages only because is was both hidden and destroyed as dangerous thinking. ...

Think this a bit of common wishful myth as historically all the 'Dark Ages' means is that we have scant historical records, so imputing motives is dubious at best.

As a student of the Bronze Age/ Iron Age transition the "dark Age" loss myth is generally bullshit.
In fact it is a croc of shit.

[Scott Mayers]

...

We lost much information through the Dark Ages only because is was both hidden and destroyed as dangerous thinking. ...

Think this a bit of common wishful myth as historically all the 'Dark Ages' means is that we have scant historical records, so imputing motives is dubious at best.

As a student of the Bronze Age/ Iron Age transition the "dark Age" loss myth is generally bullshit.
In fact it is a croc of shit.

I'm unsure which position you are taking in context here, Hobbes'. Are you supporting the idea that no information was 'lost'?...or no information can be technically proven as 'lost' so we can't speak of it? ...or something other?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Think this a bit of common wishful myth as historically all the 'Dark Ages' means is that we have scant historical records, so imputing motives is dubious at best.

As a student of the Bronze Age/ Iron Age transition the "dark Age" loss myth is generally bullshit.
In fact it is a croc of shit.

I'm unsure which position you are taking in context here, Hobbes'. Are you supporting the idea that no information was 'lost'?...or no information can be technically proven as 'lost' so we can't speak of it? ...or something other?

There are two dark ages.
The bronze age to iron age was marked by an increase in technological advancement. The cessation of writing such as it was back then recorded mainly lists of grain and other goods. Most of the technologies emerged pretty much unscathed after the darkness. The only thing that was remarkable to Greeks was the massive "Cyclopean" architecture of their forbears. The change was ore about scale than knowledge. In any event the motivation to built big still went on in other places.
What was lost was the set of power relations needed to bring together tin from far afield to mix with the locally found copper.
The emergence of Iron made the loss of these power relations a 'democratizing" force in which power was more disparate.
Since we have the material evidence from the pre-dark age period we would know if anything of any great importance was lost.
The second dark age following the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a localised phenomenon of interest only to Europe. The learning of the Classical period was all fully preserved and built upon by the Arab and Persian world.
In the early medieval period that learning was introduced to Europe by scholasticism.

So what was your point about Dark Ages?

[Scott Mayers]

There are two dark ages.
The bronze age to iron age was marked by an increase in technological advancement. The cessation of writing such as it was back then recorded mainly lists of grain and other goods. Most of the technologies emerged pretty much unscathed after the darkness. The only thing that was remarkable to Greeks was the massive "Cyclopean" architecture of their forbears. The change was ore about scale than knowledge. In any event the motivation to built big still went on in other places.
What was lost was the set of power relations needed to bring together tin from far afield to mix with the locally found copper.
The emergence of Iron made the loss of these power relations a 'democratizing" force in which power was more disparate.
Since we have the material evidence from the pre-dark age period we would know if anything of any great importance was lost.
The second dark age following the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a localised phenomenon of interest only to Europe. The learning of the Classical period was all fully preserved and built upon by the Arab and Persian world.
In the early medieval period that learning was introduced to Europe by scholasticism.

So what was your point about Dark Ages?

That the fear of zero, as with many philosophical advances, had fostered realistic threats in the day which made the political forces utilize removing records where they could to prevent such knowledge from advancing. And just because the Middle Eastern peoples of the day opted to 'save' much of the Greek material, you have to also allow for the possibility and equal likelihood that even they had their own influences that also would have filtered what we have. Many materials known to have existed through other sources indicate extinct materials lost. Euclid's thirteen books in the Elements (of Geometry) are missing a few to time. The library at Alexandra in Egypt, for instance, was another example where it was destroyed by the very majority of the public. (Probably not much different than how Lavoisier, who placed much effort in his experiments at the taxpayer's expense during what became the French Revolution had equally served social 'good' lead to his death for it.)

"Zero" and "nothingness" is still a concept most cannot believe (or do not WANT to believe) because it suggests the potential Nihilism which most reasonably fear may create anarchy should people embrace the implications of it. "Dark Ages" occur to often rectify a bad social condition but often at the expense of things like science and philosophy that could not be handled in competition with reality. Why stand for some 'moral' cause when you might recognize that morality itself has no justification in nature itself. The idea of a nothingness is as much a spark to any skeptical revolution in cycles of enlightenment to dark eras and back again. And in these dark periods, it would only be prudent that such social structures would reasonably opt to destroy the things that foster the doubt in authorities that keep the order needed during heightened periods of chaos and fear.

[Obvious Leo]

We've had this argument before, Scott, and I'm not doing it again. Arguing over the meaning of words is for fools and the words "something" and "nothing" are antonyms. Nothing does not exist because something does and if you can name a significant school of philosophy which has ever claimed otherwise then kindly do so rather than accusing me of espousing some left-field pet theory. I am defending the ancient principle of "ex nihilo, nihil fit" and if you wish to dispute this principle then the burden of proof lies with you. Since we agree via Godel that a mathematical proof would be invalid then you've got your work cut out.

[Scott Mayers]

We've had this argument before, Scott, and I'm not doing it again. Arguing over the meaning of words is for fools and the words "something" and "nothing" are antonyms. Nothing does not exist because something does and if you can name a significant school of philosophy which has ever claimed otherwise then kindly do so rather than accusing me of espousing some left-field pet theory. I am defending the ancient principle of "ex nihilo, nihil fit" and if you wish to dispute this principle then the burden of proof lies with you. Since we agree via Godel that a mathematical proof would be invalid then you've got your work cut out.

Pretend, for the sake of things that you're correct and that ALL philosophers and ALL scientists conform with your belief that nothingness has no supporters in the community of philosophers and scientists.

So then that makes me absolutely unique, then, doesn't it? Or am I just an idiot here?

I've argued WITH logic but you either don't read it, ignore it, don't understand it, or impose upon me to reference somebody else you prefer supports my view with an authority you accept. But even if I should present one, you'd merely slough such a person off.

For example, here are some: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
Or...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCUmeE8sIVo

Although there are many others, these examples at least assure a few scientists and philosophers who 'support' my stance: that nothingness is a real concept and thus it is not the case that ALL scientists and ALL philosophers doubt this.

"Since we agree via Godel that a mathematical proof would be invalid then you've got your work cut out."
Godel was a Platonist. The theorems he proposed state that (a) in any sufficiently exhausted system of logic, you cannot have one that covers all reality as both being complete AND consistent. and (b) that for a consistent logic, it cannot prove within it that it is itself complete. This does NOT exclude all logic nor does it assure one that allows for inconsistency. To nature, since it lacks any God-essence, then it (a) must have a 'source', if any, that lacks concern for consistency or being rational as this only begs that it has a reason to be reasonable!

Thus, only nothingness itself (and its component infinity) both imply its capacity to contain both consistent as well as inconsistent reality which makes it complete. Our particular universe is only one that is mostly (but not absolutely) consistent. It can't be absolute via the Incompleteness Theorem and the very definition that describes a system that contains at least one truth as well as at least one falsehood, is "contingent". Ironically, it thus makes nothingness even in our contingent universe necessary.

[Hobbes' Choice]

There are two dark ages.
The bronze age to iron age was marked by an increase in technological advancement. The cessation of writing such as it was back then recorded mainly lists of grain and other goods. Most of the technologies emerged pretty much unscathed after the darkness. The only thing that was remarkable to Greeks was the massive "Cyclopean" architecture of their forbears. The change was ore about scale than knowledge. In any event the motivation to built big still went on in other places.
What was lost was the set of power relations needed to bring together tin from far afield to mix with the locally found copper.
The emergence of Iron made the loss of these power relations a 'democratizing" force in which power was more disparate.
Since we have the material evidence from the pre-dark age period we would know if anything of any great importance was lost.
The second dark age following the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a localised phenomenon of interest only to Europe. The learning of the Classical period was all fully preserved and built upon by the Arab and Persian world.
In the early medieval period that learning was introduced to Europe by scholasticism.

So what was your point about Dark Ages?

That the fear of zero, as with many philosophical advances, had fostered realistic threats in the day which made the political forces utilize removing records where they could to prevent such knowledge from advancing..

What the fuck are you talking about?

[Obvious Leo]

Nobody "fears" zero, Scott, but it was not until the mathematical tools of the Persians found their way into Europe that the utility of zero was understood as a placeholder in symbolic logic. In mathematics zero was then and is now understood to be an absence of something. Kindly explain how an entity can be simultaneously something and an absence of something. Why is black not white?

[Scott Mayers]

There are two dark ages.
The bronze age to iron age was marked by an increase in technological advancement. The cessation of writing such as it was back then recorded mainly lists of grain and other goods. Most of the technologies emerged pretty much unscathed after the darkness. The only thing that was remarkable to Greeks was the massive "Cyclopean" architecture of their forbears. The change was ore about scale than knowledge. In any event the motivation to built big still went on in other places.
What was lost was the set of power relations needed to bring together tin from far afield to mix with the locally found copper.
The emergence of Iron made the loss of these power relations a 'democratizing" force in which power was more disparate.
Since we have the material evidence from the pre-dark age period we would know if anything of any great importance was lost.
The second dark age following the fall of the Western Roman Empire was a localised phenomenon of interest only to Europe. The learning of the Classical period was all fully preserved and built upon by the Arab and Persian world.
In the early medieval period that learning was introduced to Europe by scholasticism.

So what was your point about Dark Ages?

That the fear of zero, as with many philosophical advances, had fostered realistic threats in the day which made the political forces utilize removing records where they could to prevent such knowledge from advancing..

What the fuck are you talking about?

And you claim to have even some historical background? If you don't like my wording, let me rephrase it, as you appear to be either feigning some stupidity that I'm granting zero some essence or something???

The FEAR was about the FACT that nothingness itself, if believed to be real, is sufficient to foster doubt about ANY possible god or gods, since these religious ideas are derived from asserting a necessary and finite existence. In other words, it leads to potential Nihilism!!

Zero, if you ever look to its history, is the equivalent of this concept. You may only interpret this as some artificial placeholder but ignore that it has real meaning. The number 100 means (1 x 10^2) + (0 x 10^1) + (0 x 10^0). These are NOT merely artificial devises. Those zeros reference a real VALUE in those places which are called REAL numbers for this reason! If you want to question the square root of -1, then you begin to have a right to assert it as imaginary with some justice. Zero was a concept thought up much earlier than it had been accepted because of those like yourself who merely ridiculed it without a willingness to bother with the logic of it.

[Scott Mayers]

Nobody "fears" zero, Scott, but it was not until the mathematical tools of the Persians found their way into Europe that the utility of zero was understood as a placeholder in symbolic logic. In mathematics zero was then and is now understood to be an absence of something. Kindly explain how an entity can be simultaneously something and an absence of something. Why is black not white?

It was understood and used long before it. Babylonians used ones based on varying ones. Base 10, base 20, and base 60. Our 360 degrees even derives from this. Numbers were as much feared by many in those days as writing itself was thought to be a kind of magic. The zero, as with its meaning as nothing, was feigned for precisely what I've said. If you trust the logic of nothing, even in principle, it leads to forms of nihilism. Even the Mystical religions kept this from their own philosophy accepting nothingness and infinities and why it was eventually through them we get the present link to them for our use.