Zero is just a transfer. Nothing is created or destroyed.. and zero implies something was destroyed.
Consider that if I take four cookies and eat them. Four cookies minus four (down my throat) equals zero cookies left over.
But.. the cookies are not zeroed. They are just moved into other places.
There is no zero. Zero is wrong.
Zero should be described as "the process of moving one thing over to somewhere else so that it is no longer visible, even though it is still there in actuality".
Consider four apples... smashed into bits and pieces on a brick wall. They're gone!
Nope.. they are still there. They were just moved and transfered. Zero is just a transfer!
Transfer, eh? Show me where the apples are. And I won't count gobs of apple-paste because gobs of apple-paste is not an apple. I don't believe a material transformation is readily comprehended or modeled as a transfer.
We can still use zero to describe this transfer, but the current definition of zero is bad.
Now, if someone can really prove that man can destroy and create (i.e. like a God) then maybe zero exists.
Similarly.. when you nil out a pointer, it is not really gone... the memory is still there. It's just other memory sitting there waiting!
Has zero stinted our view? Especially as children, we think of subtracting items from our school lessons in math. This is ingrained into us at an early age that it is possible to have zero and possible to subtract items. But really it is just a transfer!
Is zero a fraud?
Is "adding and subtracting" also a fraud? In math, it is pretty much a made up fairy tail. No one can prove that a true adding and subtracting of anything actually exists, considering molecules, atoms, and ions can only be remixed and reformed.. but never fully zeroed or magically subtracted/added from life. Instead of thinking of subracting and adding items, we should see it as "changing the appearance or differing in visibility". For example two bananas that are eaten are not subtracted! They are just moved and changing visibility. All the bananas still exist once they are eaten.. they just end up in a different form. In fact, eating bananas is more of a chemical change than it is a subtraction. Am I being too anal retentive and picky? Kind of.. but I like to be truthful. We teach children lies! The world is not as simple as math makes it out to be.
For someone who likes to be truthful, there are an awful lot of things up there that aren't. The root of it all is the idea that math is about the world. It's not. It can, and indeed is, used to describe the world, but that is not the same thing as being about the world.
And, what, pray tell, are you doing living on another world? Aren't we living in the world, hence our only truth is the world itself? The world tells our truth. If math is not about the world, as you claim, then what, pray tell, are they doing teaching children about subtracting apples? Apples are our world. Part of our world being described.
www.dominobooks.co.uk
Where did I ever say (or at least how does it follow from what I said) that I'm living in another world? How does it follow from living in a world that the only truth is that world? As for why are they teaching about subtracting apples, they are doing it to teach them math. Why teach math? Well, like it or not, the truth is that we use math to describe the world.
You said, that math is not about the world. Now you are saying math describes the world. That's odd, I detect some form of contradiction here. For something to be about something, that pretty clearly states that it is describing something, considering that when I talk about you, I am describing you.
You'd better fix your contradiction detector then.
Well, if you mean that describing the world is not about the world... I have some idea of what you mean (as this page was written in partial Devils Advocate manner).. but zero, subtracting, adding, and math itself still reeks of contradiction and fraud.
One key is that math describes everything because it describes nothing. It is an abstraction so extreme that in its pure form, it has nothing to do with the real world. The glory of mathematics, as the late Caltech physicist Richard Feynman put it, "is that we do not have to say what we are talking about." Or as the mathematician Bertrand Russell famously put it: "Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, or whether what we are saying is true." --www.math.ucla.edu 
The answer to your question and problem is that you misunderstand the issue entirely. This often happens with the "Talented And Gifted" (TAG) members of society. TAG can be a form of learning disability, in that a TAG individual can turn a simple concept into a very overly complex one. So, quit tagging-out, and chill for a minute. Zero is used, like all numbers, to count items in a "given" location. We have 10 dollars in a bank account, we write a check for 4, now "we" have 6 left "in that location". Numbers only define what there is in a given time and place of a given item or concept, within the parameters of the given set of rules, nothing more, nothing less.
Pargence (partial intelligence) could be related to TAG. p.s. what you just described about given set of rules is similar to types and their importance. Types define what there is in a given time and place of a given item or concept, within the parameters of the given set of rules, nothing more, nothing less. I am not here to ask questions and obtain answers, though.. I'm here to trigger intelligence with other members of this wiki. I am not here to obtain assurance of my philosophies.. I already know that they are all correct (Ha Ha Only Serious).
I think that we are both describing the same thing, with one exception. You seem to be under the impression that zero implies nothing. This is a wrong assumption on your part. Zero may imply nothing to you, but that is your hang-up. Zero is used like an adjective describes a noun, in that it describes a number (how many). The use of zero to mean nothing, is incorrect. Like I said "TAG". You are still trying to turn a very simple thing into something that it was never meant to be. And, I will agree that "some" children have a problem with this concept, but most don't, and that some teachers have trouble teaching this because they do not understand it. I, at no point in my life had any trouble with this.
Probably because you didn't put your largest thinking cap on and you just went with the flow. I happened to be one of the kids who put up my hand and critically questioned all my teachers about things like black holes, nothingness, etc. See the book report at the bottom of this page for some ideas. Clever people get tripped up on zero, others just pass it off as every day normal nothingness. How can it be nothingness, if it isn't nothing. Nothing Is Anything and Anything Is Nothing.
This whole page just makes me laugh! You are so hung-up on such a simple concept that you can't see the forest for the trees. It all boils down to one simple part that you routinely ignore. The question is "how many left at said location". Zero never has, nor will it ever, properly define something as nothing. It only refers to a number of items in a given location. "I ate three, so I only have two left in my hand." I was too, a very bright fellow that challenged all of my teachers to become better teachers, so that everyone in the class learned more and had a much better time of school. Some people seem to always have the problem of not being able to simplify and break a problem down to its basic component.
[Is there some point to this? It seems like meaningless rubbish.]
You are referring to your comment, above?
[I didn't make any comment, above. I'm referring to the whole page.]
Your comment that this page is meaningless rubbish, was what I was referring to. It is meaningless rubbish to come here and add nothing useful.
{I guess you understood his point then. Adding nothing is useful. ;-}
Better sit down, and read it again.. because You Just Dont Get It. When we tell children we are subtracting apples, we should be very careful about how we tell them this.. we should inform them that although the apples appear to be subtracted, they are not actually gone.. they are just gone according to that little tiny focused area that we played in.. a virtual world. Many kids are not informed of this and actually do not learn about the conservation of energy law until they are in high school, or similar.
[So that's what this is? A lesson on early-years' mathematics pedagogy and not -- as it appears -- some stoned babble with a purpose hastily retrofitted to give the appearance of considered intent?]
Sorry, but after subtracting two apples, there are only three left. The proof is in the fact that I'm pretty full after said subtraction. ;D --Samuel Falvo
I dunno... after I mark two apples as bad, there will only be two left. I'm taking the other ones with me.
A dangerously interesting book report that I found while Googling about Zero and its problems:
Compare to What Is Null Zero Means Null
See also Anti Creation, Nothing Is Anything.
See original on c2.com