Why nothing matters

[Celerity]

It took centuries for people to embrace the zero. Now it’s helping neuroscientists understand how the brain perceives absences

https://aeon.co/essays/why-zero-could-unlock-how-the-brain-perceives-absence





When I’m birdwatching, I have a particular experience all too frequently. Fellow birders will point to the tree canopy and ask if I can see a bird hidden among the leaves. I scan the treetops with binoculars but, to everyone’s annoyance, I see only the absence of a bird. Our mental worlds are lively with such experiences of absence, yet it’s a mystery how the mind performs the trick of seeing nothing.

How can the brain perceive something when there is no something to perceive? For a neuroscientist interested in consciousness, this is an alluring question. Studying the neural basis of ‘nothing’ does, however, pose obvious challenges. Fortunately, there are other – more tangible – kinds of absences that help us get a handle on the hazy issue of nothingness in the brain. That’s why I spent much of my PhD studying how we perceive the number zero.

Zero has played an intriguing role in the development of our societies. Throughout human history, it has floundered in civilisations fearful of nothingness, and flourished in those that embraced it. But that’s not the only reason it’s so beguiling. In striking similarity to the perception of absence, zero’s representation as a number in the brain also remains unclear. If my brain has specialised mechanisms that have evolved to count the owls perched on a branch, how does this system abstract away from what’s visible, and signal that there are no owls to count?

The mystery shared between the perception of absences and the conception of zero may not be coincidental. When your brain recognises zero, it may be recruiting fundamental sensory mechanisms that govern when you can – and cannot – see something. If this is the case, theories of consciousness that emphasise the experience of absence may find a new use for zero, as a tool with which to explore the nature of consciousness itself.

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The Fixx - Saved by Zero (Special Club Mix)