Everything that exists does so in some definite quantity. Existence is that property of conceptual referents such that they necessarily exist in some definite quantity.
I’m confused by this mix of referring to things that exist and referring to existence as a property of conceptual referents. Are you saying that conceptual referents are the things that exist in finite and definite quantity? Or are you saying something else?
definite quantity
I see that you are claiming that existing things are bounded in some quantifiable way, but you do not seem to account for the inherent uncertainty of determining quantities.
The identification of a definite quantity requires a quantifier. Some uncertainty comes from the implementation of this quantifier; if it is incorrect then the identified quantity would be wrong. You could handle this by verifying the implementation of the quantifier, but that only pushes the uncertainty into the context of verification. To use the quantifier you must choose to halt the regression of verification and accept the remaining uncertainty.
Additional uncertainty comes from the choice of the quantifier. The quantifier used is one choice from a large and possibly infinite set of possible quantifiers. Not all of these quantifiers would provide the same answer—or even provide a “reasonable” answer, for example by replying with “hat” instead of a number like “2”.
For example: I scoop up a handful of gravel from a beach. I want to count the stones in my hand. But my hand contains all kinds of stuff; rocks and dirt from the size of dust to a couple inches across, bits of wood, shell, and other organic debris. Out of this mess which bits of the stuff are stones? It depends on how I quantify stones; is it by volume, apparent area, mass, composition, color, texture… there are many possible measurements, and combination of measurements. I choose one way of counting stones and get a quantity of 5, but it could have been 1 or 1000 or “blue hat” if I had made other choices.
Given this uncertainty, how can I know that only a “definite quantity” of stones exist in my hand?
I’m confused by this mix of referring to things that exist and referring to existence as a property of conceptual referents. Are you saying that conceptual referents are the things that exist in finite and definite quantity? Or are you saying something else?
I see that you are claiming that existing things are bounded in some quantifiable way, but you do not seem to account for the inherent uncertainty of determining quantities.
The identification of a definite quantity requires a quantifier. Some uncertainty comes from the implementation of this quantifier; if it is incorrect then the identified quantity would be wrong. You could handle this by verifying the implementation of the quantifier, but that only pushes the uncertainty into the context of verification. To use the quantifier you must choose to halt the regression of verification and accept the remaining uncertainty.
Additional uncertainty comes from the choice of the quantifier. The quantifier used is one choice from a large and possibly infinite set of possible quantifiers. Not all of these quantifiers would provide the same answer—or even provide a “reasonable” answer, for example by replying with “hat” instead of a number like “2”.
For example: I scoop up a handful of gravel from a beach. I want to count the stones in my hand. But my hand contains all kinds of stuff; rocks and dirt from the size of dust to a couple inches across, bits of wood, shell, and other organic debris. Out of this mess which bits of the stuff are stones? It depends on how I quantify stones; is it by volume, apparent area, mass, composition, color, texture… there are many possible measurements, and combination of measurements. I choose one way of counting stones and get a quantity of 5, but it could have been 1 or 1000 or “blue hat” if I had made other choices.
Given this uncertainty, how can I know that only a “definite quantity” of stones exist in my hand?