I love this, Chris, mixing in symbolism, language, numbers, and what have you all in one well written article.

I have an article for you, about numbers, but then truly about the basics of numbers and about the dual nature of zero in particular. This is therefore not about mathematical evidence in the common sense of the word but very specific evidence about one of the actors involved.

First off, because I don't think you'll click the link below unless I convince you how interesting this is, let's show the dual nature of 0.

"010" contains two 0s that each are different. Remove the first 0, and nothing changes, the total stays the same.

But remove the second 0 and the number changes dramatically.

Many people when they think of 0 do not distinguish between both, and discussing zero has as pitfall that folks think it represents just nothing. Many think that zero is a singular number, while in reality no number is singular except for 1 (Note: 1 can represent the unit and the overall group as well so not even 1 is pure singular in nature either).

What the evidence shows is that 0 is always there, that it is fundamentally present in any and all numeral systems. Meanwhile today, many mathematicians have their way with zero -- include it, exclude it -- at will, so to speak.

If you see the evidence (and concur with it), then you can see that a fundamental zero means we must see reality as never able to fully unite at the overall level.

If we call out the overall level, and do not think that a zero is present, then we can think there is some unifying property among all. Yet recognizing that a zero is present among the numbers at the overall level, we will always have a fundamental separation present.

The conclusion is that the big picture can then not be based on a fundamental unity of any kind. It may get tentalizingly close to unity, but will remain at least shy of unity at that one top level where we always find 0 present among the other numbers.

Gödel already showed us something similar with his Incompleteness Theorems.

https://www.cantorsparadise.com/discovering-zero-among-the-prime-numbers-65a47cbf79ec

Thank you for your fun article. Well delivered. I hope you can appreciate mine.