While I can point to three eggs, five cows, or 17 cups, in none of these cases will I have located the numbers 3, 5, or 17. Of course, the same could be said of all numbers. These numbers have no correlates in the real world. Of course, the same could be said of negative numbers like -1, -5, or -100. To say one has zero eggs is just a mathematical way of saying one does not have any eggs. While zero might be considered a number for classification purposes, does it truly exist in the real world? While I can point to three eggs and say, “Here are three eggs,” I cannot point to some X and say, “Here are zero Xs.” Zero does not correspond to anything in reality, because zero signifies the absence of reality. It is in the class of things we call numbers. Zero is not a letter, a flower, or a molecule. The other day a bizarre question popped into my mind: Is zero a number? On one level, the answer is obviously yes.
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