What is it about?
Our lives are controlled by numbers and the most important number is Zero. In this article I explain what the zero does for us and what it does not. The zero denotes a quantity, it is a placeholder and since the 7th century a fullfledged number. Some even suspect it has a mystic aspect.
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Why is it important?
This article is not just about the history of the number zero, it touches also the ontological and phenomenological aspects of its use. The main issue that I try to discuss is the question whether there is a relation between emptiness as a quantity at one side and emptiness as a phenomenon at the other.
Perspectives
I have been studying Buddhism for a long time, especially the Madhyamika philosophy of the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna. Emptiness is a core concept in his texts. Some suspect that he was the one who prepared the invention of Zero as a number that took place 500 years later in the 7th century in India. I think this is a mistake caused by a misunderstanding of Buddhism.
Erik Hoogcarspel
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: From Emptiness to Nonsense: the Constitution of the Number Zero (for Non-mathematicians), February 2024, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004691568_031.
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