If we begin with Nothing, where does the equal sign = come from? This delicate question is explored more fully in Volume II of Iconic Arithmetic.
Equality is the absence of distinction. The base case is
void = void
[…]
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⇒ Fermions
> […] electrons, which are fermions, sit on separate shells around atomic nuclei. If they were bosons, they would instead sit together on the same shell, leaving the universe without chemistry—and without chemists, as our own existence rests on the little fermions’ refusal to share space.
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Existence is not the comparison of a form to the absence of a form. It is rather a Comparison between the Outside of an empty container and the Inside. Outside, each and every container represents *not Nothing*. From the outside we associate empty containers with Unity, with that which has no parts. (William Bricken, Iconic Arithmetic Volume I: The Design of Mathematics for Human Understanding (Unary press, 2019), p. 169.)
The shell-bracket shifts our perspective on ≠ from a comparison of the existence or non-existence of an object to a comparison of the presence or absence of contents. Very literally, shifting from implicit to explicit framing changes our reading style from active to passive, while it changes our interpretation from process to object, from transform to Form.