NUMBERS AND NOTHINGNESS

What is zero? It cannot be a number because numbers are always quantities and zero is no quantity. Actually, zero is the opposite of numbers. Zero is a void in the number system. Numbers mean something. Zero means nothing.

Yet, zeros are used in mathematical calculations. 1+0=1 and 1-0=1 means that a nothing cannot be added to or subtracted from something. All numbers, no matter how large or small, are somethings. All zeros mean nothing.

All mathematical calculations are accomplished by minds. All calculations, whether practical or abstract, demonstrate to consciousness that something cannot eradicate nothing and that a nothing cannot be added to or subtracted from something. Both something and nothing are useful concepts in mathematics and are, therefore, real to the mind.

These same concepts apply to the world as a whole. To consciousness, something and nothing in the mind and in the world, are separate realities that cannot affect each other; that is, something cannot overcome nothing and a nothing cannot be added to or subtracted from something. Wherever there is something. there must also be nothing; and wherever there is nothing, there must also be something, even if that something is only a consciousness that recognizes nothing as a concept objectified by the mind.
The only known power that can separate and differentiate between something and nothing is consciousness. Without consciousness, something and nothing are everywhere and nowhere at no time.

Consciousness separates something from nothing and blends both together to create the reality of the world and of the mind. Every individual something, whether abstract or concrete, is necessarily real. Nothingness is also real, but only occupies reality as an idea; that is, as the concept that separates objects in space or ideas in the mind. Consciousness is that very power that creates reality, whether in the world or isolated to the mind.

However, if everything, including the idea of nothing, is real; how can anything be false? Falsity has been misunderstood. Falsity is not a distortion or diminution of the real. Falsity is actually a nothingness that lies behind reality.

This universal fact can be illustrated by a return to mathematical examples. 1+0=1 is a true and real combination of real ideas because it is useful to consciousness. 1+0=0 is unreal, not because it is a distortion of the realities of ones and zeros, but because it is a useless combination of real ideas. Useless combinations of real ideas mean nothing to consciousness. Falsity is a nothingness that lies behind reality.

The same is universally true of the world as a whole. Falsity always consists of useless combinations of true and real ideas. The world comprises useful and useless systems. Yet, every such system, whether it works or not, comprises real and true ideas. The systems that don't work are only false because they are useless; that is, they do nothing and mean nothing. All systems, whether solely in the mind and/or in the world, comprise necessarily real and true objects of consciousness whether such systems themselves are useful or useless. Falsity merely occupies the nothingness inherent in the false systems themselves.