Philosophical Questions 10 Why are negative numbers considered as "Real Numbers"?

I am only giving my opinion, and please feel free to disagree. Please don't hate/bully/dislike the "novel" just because of my opinions. The purpose of the Q/A is to prompt YOUR thinking. Thank for reading this. (I'm, by all means, just an amateur. I don't study psychology nor philosophy. I'm just giving my point of views on these broad, undefined questions.)

Again: if you used my ideas in any of your published material/assessments/homework/anything, please give me credit. Drop me a comment and I will probably be okay with it. (You can join discord if you want to speak to me personally about this kind of stuff/just wanna chat)

Of course, you know what a negative number is. In mathematics, a negative number is any number that is less than zero. Are negative numbers real? Well, mathematically yes, because it can be represented along the number line. In real life, I don't believe that it is real at all. The concept of number is already abstract enough, much less negative numbers.

At least in real life, numbers actually make sense. It's a mathematical "object" that is used for counting, measuring, system... I have 5 apples, and "five" shows the quantity here. What if I say I have -5 apples? Well, what does that even mean? Negative 5 means that I don't have a single apple, and I'm in debt for five!? This, of course, doesn't make any sense. However, when it's used in banks, everyone seems to understand it.

[Account Balance: -100 USD]

The negative number indicates that the bank account holder is in DEBT. He owes the bank 100 dollars, and hence the number is "-100". But this is very abstract and almost imaginary. Is it possible for someone to physically have -100 dollars? No, it's impossible. Am I saying that negative numbers are completely useless? Of course not. Negative numbers are used everywhere, and it's one of the basics principles of Mathematics. But it's very difficult (or even impossible) for it to be "imagined" or "created" in real life.

So here is my point. Why are "negative numbers" considered as a real number? Yes, it can be shown on the number line, but it's no way "real".

Thanks for reading. Short and simple, but it's very interesting. I thought of this recently, and I don't think this had been asked before.

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