Hacker News Reader

Comment by kazinator | Hacker News Reader

The counting activity doesn't begin when the first item is registered; it begins when the counter is initialized to zero. A decision is made to begin counting, along with the realization that nothing has been counting yet. That's when counting has started. When the first item is seen, the counting is then continuing.

Suppose your job is to count some events. You check in for work at 8:00 a.m., but the first event has not registered until noon. By your logic you should not be paid for four hours, because you're paid to count, and counting started at 1.

View on HN

Are you sure?

We are talking about the he numbering, not the work-doing.

You start waiting at 8, and you wait between events. But you only count (increment) when an event happens.

The 0 comes for free when you are ready to count (hello golang and C++, as well as human intuition).

When you count stars in the sky you don't say "0, 1, 2".

You say "..., 1, 2", or if no stars show up, you say "there are 0" after timer expires.

> But you only count (increment) when an event happens.

Increment what?

> When you count stars in the sky you don't say "0, 1, 2".

No, you say, "I'm going to start counting stars now. Okay, 1, 2, ...".

The preparation part is the zero. You counted stars before and reached some number; you're not starting at that number.

You're still thinking like a computer. Most people think of counting in terms of 'here are some apples, how many exactly?'

If you just look at an empty space, the # of apples is equivalent is equivalent to the # of dinosaurs, but they're only equivalent by their absence.

No, the mathematical definition of counting (i.e. whether or not a set is countable) involves mapping to the natural numbers, which doesn’t include 0.

Math counting doesn't care where you start. You could start -400 if it's useful for the problem

You can name things however you want, but there is a canonical bijection to zero-based ordinals.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number

I don't think your definition is complete. We can count a set by mapping its elements to the natural numbers, and then identifying that number which is highest. However, we must have a provision for identifying zero as the highest when the set and mapping are empty.

What counter? You're saying a counter exists before people start counting? Is this a form of mathematical Platonism?

What does your stopwatch say right now?

Your pedometer?

Your traffic clicker?

Those are devices, not the spoken language.

So if the counter doesn't speak, there is no counting?

A counter can be lazily instantiated just before the first item is counted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com