Thread: What was the first number?

One and Two probably came into existence at the same time. The concept of being singular is pretty meaningless without a plurality to compare it to.

Originally Posted by Xei

Numbers are symbols.

They represent a quality of a group of objects.

The only question with any sort of meaning related to yours is 'which was the first number which could be correctly applied in the history of the universe to a group of objects'. There is no real answer to this, you could assign all sorts of numbers to different qualities of the beginning of the universe.

The groups of objects which numbers describe are real. The numbers themselves are not real (real in a physical sense, not technical mathematical sense).

Second.

ive never thought about this before, but its a good point to think about.

i reckon it would have just been a few integers, not all the real numbers, i just doubt people from that long ago would have thought that it is possible to have infinate amount of numbers.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

One and Two probably came into existence at the same time. The concept of being singular is pretty meaningless without a plurality to compare it to.

I think "that" and "those" were the first number set. Probably "that," since "those" specifies no number, and "that" specifies one (one singular or one group of other things, it;s still one). Or at least whatever translates to those words.
Maybe "gone," too.

The number 1 would have had to be the first number.
Because if the fist number to exist was, say, 2, then the only number in existance at that time to describe that number would have been 2, so it would be the 2nd number, and not the first, because "1st" didn't exist yet.

Get it?
The first number had to be one.

Then came zero, because there had to be something to signify when there wasn't one. Then came all the other numbers.

In fact, there may not be any other numbers except 0 and 1, because you can't have one "two." It's just a plural amounts of ones....