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submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 10 points 6 months ago

As a programmer, I'm ashamed to admit that the correct answer is no. If zero was natural we wouldn't have needed 10s of thousands of years to invent it.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 10 points 6 months ago

Did we need to invent it, or did it just take that long to discover it? I mean “nothing” has always been around and there’s a lot we didn’t discover till much more recently that already existed.

[-] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 4 points 6 months ago

IMO we invented it, because numbers don't real. But that's a deeper philosophical question.

[-] darthelmet@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Does “nothing” “exist” independent of caring what there is nothing of or in what span of time and space there is nothing of the thing?

There’s always been “something” somewhere. Well, at least as far back as we can see.

[-] lowleveldata@programming.dev 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

As a programmer, I'd ask you to link your selected version of definition of natural number along with your request because I can't give a fuck to guess

[-] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 1 points 6 months ago

I truly have no idea what you're saying.

[-] pooberbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago

I think you're considering whether zero is somehow "naturally-occurring", while others may be considering the concept of a natural number, which is a nonnegative integer.