William Lane Craig denies the number zero.

[Jehanne]

Zero is perhaps kind of a special case. After all, no one can say that non-existence is the property of something, because if it was something then it wouldn’t be zero. It seems self-evident that ‘nothing’ does not exist.

Zero exists in the same sense that "blue" exists.  While scientists can give a wavelength/frequency to the color "blue", that designation is arbitrary, but, nonetheless, it's something that all human beings agree upon, with extremely few exceptions.  Likewise, zero exists in many senses; for instance, at 60Hz per second of AC current (in North America, 50 Hz in Europe), there are 120 times a second when there is zero current, because there is zero voltage, because the current, at that point, is reversing direction, sinusoidally from 120 Volts (times square root of 2) to minus 120 Volts (times square of 2), and so, we can, meaningfully, take about a zero electrical field or a zero magnetic field or zero current on a wire, or a zero drift velocity of valence electrons in a conductor.  Does the current "disappear" at zero voltage?  No, it's still there, but it really is in an idle state, neither positive nor negative.

And, so, the concept of zero, definitively, has many physical interpretations.

[Jehanne]

Both are true; what's your point?

The number zero is an existent concept that represents a quantity that is nonexistent. William Lane Craig's mistake is conflating the existent concept of the number zero with the nonexistent quantity that it represents. Just as there is the concept of nothingness but there is no nothingness: there's the number zero but there is no zeroness.

WLC is too dense to grasp this. He's a cheap apologist Christian hack in posh clothing with an education but who has evidently sub-par abstract thinking skills.

I don't know that Craig has had any higher math or science while in college.  His BA was in communications (which actors and theater majors like to take), and after that, he went to Christian seminary school, and after that, he got a PhD in Christian New Testament history.  His second PhD was in the Philosophy of Religion, but there, he focused on Jesus' "resurrection", but now that he has the title of "Philosopher", he thinks that he knows anything and everything.

[Edwardo Piet]

Hmmm.

"zero" the number exists as a concept. Zeroness as a thing beyond that doesn't exist.

"Blue" exists as a concept. Blueness exists beyond that as qualia and subjective phenomenological experience that is different and unique to everyone.

So blue and blueness exists in at least two senses but "zero" only exists in one sense.

[Jehanne]

Hmmm.

"zero" the number exists as a concept. Zeroness as a thing beyond that doesn't exist.

"Blue" exists as a concept. Blueness exists beyond that as qualia and subjective phenomenological experience that is different and unique to everyone.

So blue and blueness exists in at least two senses but "zero" only exists in one sense.

Think about it in terms of voltages on a wire, positive to negative, and back; what is "zero voltage"?  It is the ground, the voltage that the Earth is at.

[Sal]

Don't conflate zero with the empty set {Ø}.

Numbers are abstractions, and zero {0} is when you simply take any amount (even negative amounts) and subtract it by itself.

There's even a history about, in positional numbers, where they used empty spaces between numbers which today are 2,016, they'd use something like 2_16 or 2 16, which could be problematic because what if the number was 20,016?

[robvalue]

I don't think you need any maths training to be able to understand the difference between zero [of something] in reality, and the concept of "zero" as part of a closed abstract system, such as mathematics. It wouldn't even matter if "zero" never corresponded to anything in reality. It doesn't have to. Closed mathematical systems only have to be internally consistent. Some have no known relevance to reality.

Anyone who continues to conflate the abstract with the real is either ignorant or has an agenda of trying to slide in other things which exist only as concepts (according to evidence as-yet presented) into reality. (Arguments are not evidence of existence.) You can of course say that abstract concepts exist in their own way, that is fine. But they are still very different. Some correspond to existent things, and some do not. "Zero" does not correspond to an existent thing on its own. No numbers do. They have to be combined with something.

[Jehanne]

I don't think you need any maths training to be able to understand the difference between zero [of something] in reality, and the concept of "zero" as part of a closed abstract system, such as mathematics. It wouldn't even matter if "zero" never corresponded to anything in reality. It doesn't have to. Closed mathematical systems only have to be internally consistent. Some have no known relevance to reality.

Anyone who continues to conflate the abstract with the real is either ignorant or has an agenda of trying to slide in other things which exist only as concepts (according to evidence as-yet presented) into reality. (Arguments are not evidence of existence.) You can of course say that abstract concepts exist in their own way, that is fine. But they are still very different. Some correspond to existent things, and some do not. "Zero" does not correspond to an existent thing on its own. No numbers do. They have to be combined with something.

I agree that "zero" is a completely abstract, yet completely coherent, object and concept, but that it is also a physical concept as well, such as a photon having zero rest energy.

[Mister Agenda]

Would something like this count as evidence that concepts exist in our brains?

http://www.livescience.com/53535-compute...ously.html

That shows that concepts are symbolically represented in the brain something I've never opposed.

Could you be more specific about what evidence, if it existed, you would find persuasive that concepts are actually in people's brains?

I would examples of concepts forming sans brain or computational mechanism persuasive evidence that concepts are only represented in the brain rather than constructed by them.

[Neo-Scholastic]

You guys do understand that an abstraction is not synonymous with not real, do you?

[Jehanne]

You guys do understand that an abstraction is not synonymous with not real, do you?

That statement can be made against Craig, not us.