nor does anyone since their number's growing as we speak. I can't tell if you were kidding. Either way, sorry for the confusion.

No worries.

The value in understanding this "paradox" is to better understand what the word "nothing" means since many people think that nothing means something which can be understood, something that other things cannot logically come from, when in reality, it's just complete non-understanding. — Echogem222

There is nothing greater or less than nothing, because if not, then that would mean that nothing isn't nothing. That is the most we can possibly understand. — Echogem222

This--my remark to follow this preamble--is not conventionally philosophical, and as for logic, it is necessarily not that. But in my estimation it is philosophy, only it is philosopy not "thought," but "done"---(if properly executed) by the Body. I am sensitive to the fact that it may annoy (already), but who knows, it may not. So, as a well intended arrow shot in the dark,

Your topic--your struggle to resolve the paradox--has an affinity with Koans (in Rinzai Zen). Explaining would be counter productive. I'll just illustrate with a classic by Hakuin,

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

To which the answer is an abrupt, shallow inhale, followed by a joyful long exhale expressing, simultaneously with a blooming grin, and the breath, all barely audibly, "riiiiiight."


Necessary addendum: anyway that's how my body felt after reading those statements I quoted above.

There is nothing greater or less than nothing, because if not, then that would mean that nothing isn't nothing. That is the most we can possibly understand. — Echogem222

Back to more conventional philosophy. Parmenides settled on all is one because of his construction that nothing can proceed from nothing meant there can't be a beginning (and therefore end) Thus all has always been, and always been as one. The multiplicity of things are illusions projected by One.

So, is the resolution to your, and all paradoxes, simply that paradoxes are not to be approached as things to resolve with logic. Paradoxes arise out of projections of Truth but are not true (to use a classical way) in themselves? They take us to the outer ranges of logic and leave us on a single precipice surrounded by what we think must be an empty abyss.

Your fittingly melancholy flavored conclusion "that's all we can understand," applies to the "domain" of the projections; before we arrive at the precipice, where we must abandon understanding. It turns out, its not meloncholy, but cause for celebration, the paradox and its irresolvibility! Truth is "beyond" the domain of understanding; the realm of multiplicity. It certainly cannot be harvested out of logic, nor anything involving the use of Language, arguably a projection twice removed.

The ground is considered zero at every and any point you select on the ground line or level, and the rest of the terrain is measured relative to your selected point. To select a value for that point other than zero is arbitrary, but not necessarily wrong mathematically speaking.

The ground is zero because it is the reference point. Think "sea level", or think "neutral"; not a hole and not a mound. The hole is -1 because the hole was made by removing +1 of dirt. Filling in the hole with +1 of dirt brings it back to its original value, but filling it in with +2 creates a mound of +1. You would need to dig another hole from somewhere else to add the extra +1 to the original hole, or it would break conservation.

It appears that you contradicted yourself here:

hole = -1 (if the hole is -1, then it would take +2 to become 1, not just +1)
excavated dirt = +1 (not enough to fill the hole then, which doesn't make sense since removing this value caused the hole to be) — Echogem222

So to fill the hole, you would just need +1. — Echogem222

Let's say that the ground had the value of 75 mounds of dirt before any dirt was removed from it, but when the hole was made due to dirt being removed, the ground lost a value of 1, hence becoming 74. — Echogem222

What would you do if you didn't know that the ground had a value of 75 mounds, but you can still dig up +1 of dirt and make a hole? What does the math look like then?

If 0 is nothing then is -7 more nothing than 0? Is -7 something or nothing?

No, paradoxes can be resolved, but understanding nothing is impossible. Paradoxes are not nothing, nothing is just non-understanding, so if a paradox existed in nothing (somehow) we wouldn't even have awareness of it.

If the ground is unknown it would be X or A, or any other variable. I'll say A.

The ground is A
The hole is 0
the dirt removed is +1

A-1=A-1 but then if you add 1 back to A, it would then just be A, not zero.

Ok, but what do you consider the value of the initial unknown variable 'A' to be? Is it 0 or is it some other initial value?

It would be a positive number, which is why I didn't say - A, just A, which in math equals +A. If A were 0 calling it "A" wouldn't have a point since 0 is a known number. However, since the dirt removed from the hole is +1, the ground is at least +1 just to surround the hole, though likely a lot more.

Perhaps I'm totally missing the point, but a hole needs boundaries that define where it is - i.e. what/where is the border between the "hole" and the "not hole"? Otherwise there is no hole.

What is in the hole? If we're talking about the physical universe (reality, existence, everything that is the case, etc) then the word "nothing" (or nothingness) does not apply because even in empty space there are energy fields and subatomic particles coming in and out of existence.

When you think of a hole, there are two different values, the empty space (which is a positive value when you want to know how much space you have available), and the ground surrounding the empty space (which is a positive value when you want to know how much dirt you have available). But the empty space and the ground are not both positive values at the same time.

In math, numbers can have words attached to them. Like this:
1 orange + 1 orange= 1 oranges, not 1 orange + 1 apple= 2 fruit. This is because if you were wanting to find out how many fruit you have, you would do it like this: 1 fruit + 1 fruit= 2 fruit. Because you could also do it like this 1A+1A=2A.

So when you're trying to find out how much empty space you have, in that moment, you are not looking for how much dirt you have in a given space, and during that time, the dirt is a non-value, in other words, 0 space. This is because you do not understand how the dirt would be space, it is nothing to you in that sense.

In a math problem when you want to try and find how much dirt you have as well as how much space, you could do that, but the dirt and the space would not ever merge in values because you can't add dirt and space together and get just dirt or just space, they will always remain separate. So when you see the value of the hole as being the dirt and the space, you are seeing the equivalent of 2 different things in one location, not 1 thing.

A computer is not just 1 thing either, it's a collection of things that have 1 purpose, to function as a computer, but that's a function, a computer is not truly a single object, it's a function that occurs when many small parts exist together in a certain way.

If you want to summarize what a computer or a hole is that's fine, but you need to remember that they are not truly 1 thing.