A good reply, Benjamin, and I enjoy your moderating tone.
Entire nations rise early in the morning just to make sure their wallets do not remain empty. As such we have a clear null state that is nevertheless based on the value we have given money. We, human beings, made money the mightiest force on the planet, and the null state is found in top as what must be avoided. The entire set of financial mechanisms are set up in such matter that we focus on what has most value, to the point we cannot even function well without it anymore. Economists recognize this state and this is part and parcel of economic thinking (more, more, more, just so we don't end up with less, less, less).
For physicists, the story is worse. And I am just going to describe it for what it is, Benjamin. I'll see if you have questions or interest in what is moving away from your original story/my replies.
All we have for the beginning of the material universe, scientifically, is the starting point when Energy became Matter. We don't know much about the prior state of the universe, except that it was indeed capable of producing the result.
We have no data about the beginning of Energy, the beginning of Time or Space. So, they should not be included unless someone has very good reasons to place the beginning of everything at that same spot, and they do not. I have only seen empty hands so far, except for Energy transforming into Matter 13.8 billion years ago.
The only option for the prior state of the universe to have become matter is when something crossed a line, when something broke. A fundamental line in the sand had to get crossed otherwise the result would not have become the result (or not stayed the result for more than a few seconds).
To say this in plain words: if we recognize that the material result is a result indeed and can therefore be seen as 'the omelet', then we can declare the prior state, without saying all too much about it, 'the egg'.
The egg cannot transform into an omelet without breaking. Not possible. And this breaking is not a disintegration of all, but rather 'just' a breaking of the shell of the egg.
If we take the egg to mean a unified field of forces, for instance, then breaking the egg means that the unified field of forces got broken. The omelet represents then the material reality that followed in which the unified field of forces is at best replicated at the local level.
With the local level, I mean to say that the largest such setting is the Milky Way for us, and the smallest such settings are our bodies each of us ourselves. The universe does not have a unified field of forces. The universe is an overall reality of the parts ‘only’.
Gödel already showed this about 100 years ago. When we start with a truthful overall position, then we cannot bring it all the way to the universe; it breaks down way before.
* Planet and star are unified masses, for example. Solar system and galaxy are still unified in their collective behaviors, but more loosely so. Anything larger than galaxies, and there is no overall reality that actively holds anything that large in place. Galaxies are the max. The universe is not a single overall framework. Two realities in material behavior therefore, one seen at the local level (convergence), one at the universal level (divergence). These behaviors cannot be made one behavior.
Same with the subatomic reality. Linear matter is found with neutrons and protons in the center of atoms. Yet non-linear matter is found with the negative electrons circling the protons to neutralize their positive charges.
QM is a charged subatomic reality. At the universal level, however, the whole is neutral in charge. Again, we find two realities that cannot be made one reality.
Zero is pretty mighty.
Said in a religious manner and as an analogy: God could have originally had one eye, but after God created creation, God godself split in two (in the non-materialized remainder and the materialized results), and as such God has two eyes (two realities) now as well.
Too many physicists want to unite everything at some kind of overall level. Their desired scientific ideal is a Cyclops. That is why they deny the functional zero. It undermines what they desire.
Even the scientists accepting the Year Zero are an extremely small group among all scientists. Even set theorists agreeing to the empty set to start put with are the smallest group of mathematicians. Most physicists and scientists ignore the zero as functional, essential. They want their Cyclops; they don't want a God with two eyes.
Thank you for letting me say all this, Benjamin. Far out from where we started, I know, but that sometimes happens when zero as a functional number needs to be explained well.
: - )
