If 1 x 1 = a number, and 0 x 1 = not a number, wouldn't this =

1 x 1 is 1 so (Whole number x Whole number = Whole number) Now -1 x 1 = -1 (Negative number x whole number = negative number, or possibly whole number too) okay, so 0 x 1 = 0 (So no number x whole number = no number).

OKAY, but what about this?

0 x 0 = ?

You would say 0 right?

Well I've always had trouble with this because the way it was explained to me was.

If you have nothing, then multiply it by something, you have nothing.

SO

If you have nothing then multiply it by nothing, you should have something?

It kinda makes sense kinda doesn't.

Do this.

I give you $0 and then multiply what I gave you by $0 you would have nothing right?

Well that makes sense, but if I gave you nothing, ZERO times, then I gave you something right?

So I give you 0, 0 times, (0 x 0). I gave you NOTHING, NO AMOUNT OF TIMES, so I gave you something, some amount of times.

So in THIS situation, Zero times Zero is X (any number besides 0) because I gave you 0 amount of an item, 0 times. If I gave you 0 amount of an item, 1 times (0 x 1) then that would indeed be 0.

That wierd...

You may be too young to remember, but the semantic concept being presented is the same exploited decades ago in the "Zork" type adventure game "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- one of the puzzles involved dropping everything you were carrying, then picking up the "no tea", then using it to activate another puzzle.

Whenever you did an "inventory" command, it would say
"you are carrying: no tea"

It leverages the Zen idea that if you can have/hold things, and then when you drop everything you now "have nothing" -- making "nothing" something that you can carry and use and trade like any other conventional object.

The same idea carries over to "listening to the silence" or "seeing the dark."