PROPOSITIONS AND QUERIES
by F Richard Singer III edition date 11/07/07
website: www.conceptualstudy.org
email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net
SECTION 0 INTRODUCTION
Preliminary Remarks: Grammatical form often suggests the primary function of a sentence. An imperative like ‘Close the door’ calls for action. It may also suggest such information as the door is open, but that is not its primary function. When our primary function is to propose information we use a declarative like ‘The door is open’. Interrogatives may also have information as their primary focus, however they request rather than propose information. This section sketches information related concepts in my net for understanding. Section 1 goes into more detail, using these concepts to discuss the relation between statements and proposing information. Section 2 indicates how similar ideas can be used to analyze various relations between questions and requests for information. Section 3 applies the concepts of Section 2 to some questions which have often been considered puzzling. It indicates some of the reasons for failing to recognize that many of our statements and questions are less clear than we might imagine. Section 4 suggests a preliminary presentation of the type of plausibility concept that might be useful in a net for understanding, relating this to the utility of a concept of truth. Abstract analysis is interspersed with examples and supplementary comments. These may add perspective, but are not essential to the main theme.
Language and Understanding: I can use concepts for various purposes but one of the most important ones is to enhance what I do. I can use language for various purposes but one of the most important ones is to develop concepts. In this sense, language is to concept as concept is to doing, and just as I find doing more fundamental, I find understanding more fundamental than language. The main reason why I go to such lengths to distinguish between language and concepts is that contemporary philosophy, as well as formalism in mathematics, has placed so much emphasis on language. Perhaps this is because the concept of a concept is personal while the concept of a symbol seems more physical, and the trend in philosophy has been towards the physical and away from the personal. However the concept of symbol now seems much more remote to me than it once seemed, as indicated in the alphabet remark below.
The Alphabet: If you look at the first letter and the last letter in the word ‘that’, you will see that they are the same letter. Note that the word ‘letter’ in my preceding statement is used for two distinct but closely related concepts. By ‘same letter’ I mean the 20th element in the alphabet rather than to a specific instance of that letter, but ‘first letter’ and ‘last letter’ do refer to specific instance of that letter. By a letter of the alphabet I am not referring to a particular object. Instead the alphabet is a collection of abstract objects. Even when I talk about ‘t’ as being the last letter in the ‘that’, I am not referring to a specific physical object, since the word ‘that’ is also an abstract rather than physical object.
Information: The concept of information fundamental for this paper. Information is an account (or partial account) of something. I have information about state capital, about my wood supply, about how to repair a bicycle tire, about the fundamental theorem of calculus, about human rights, about a friend’s attitude towards voting, etc. A paradigm case formulation would be an appropriate way to bring this concept into greater focus, but for the purposes at hand, I will rely instead on examples and assume that there is a relatively clear public concept of information. This concept will be applied to private information that may or may not correspond to information that is shared.
Personalized and Shared Information: Suppose Jill says that Magellan was the first person to circumnavigate the earth. Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, we implicitly assume those hearing her receive the same or shared information. However it is obvious that this information would not be shared by anyone who did not know the meaning of circumnavigate. Thus while each listener will have there own personalized information, it is convenient to think Jill’s statement as a description of some state which is independent of any individual. Information depends on some relevant background. For effective communication involving shared information the relevant background must be similar. Often this background is so ordinary that explicit mention of this is unnecessary. In other cases, for example in teaching situations, it may be useful to make part of the background explicit in order to bring the information into better focus. The concept of shared information is based on the notion that private differences are not particularly significant, and in many cases this may be so. However the concept of shared information is a somewhat more remote concept than the concept of private information. In most cases when using the word information the context should be sufficient to determine whether this refers to shared information or to private information, and I usually indicate which only as a matter of emphasis.
??Example 0a: Suppose
Jane says that
Remark: Jane’s
information about
Focus: It is not surprising that we can deal with various levels of focus for information we consider. For some purposes we need very clear information. For others fairly vague information will suffice, especially when there is a price in time or energy for clear focus. Precise or exact information is often clear, but not always. Furthermore ordinary purposes often demand clear information that does not need to be exact. An exact formulation can even obscure information that would be clear if given more exactly. While (1) below easily communicates information which I find extremely clear, it takes effort for me to obtain clear information from (2). Thus while I can obtain more precise information from (2), it is not information that I can easily obtain and recall, nor is it information that I often would use.
(1) The moon is about a quarter of a million miles away.
(2) The distance between the center of the moon and the center of the earth varies from 221463 to 252710 miles, with a mean distance from center to center of 238855 miles, and that these figures are correct to the nearest mile with a probability of better than 95%, assuming a normal distribution in the measurement on which this information was based.
Example 0b: P is told that Santa lives at the North Pole. P may make at least an implicit background assumption in order to clarify the information sent. Until P knows whether the sender thinks Santa is real or fictitious P might find information about Santa too vague to engage in an extended interchange.
Syntactic Concepts: Syntactic concepts are those that are used to think about the structure or form of language. Syntactic concepts are only of minor significance for the main theme of this paper, which is on the use of language to focus on information. However I will briefly discuss a syntactic concept of a sentence as a prelude to this main theme. The word ‘sentence’ can also be used to refer to a syntactic object or to a specific instance of it, as indicated in the statement below.
The previous sentence I wrote is the same sentence as the one I heard when it was read to me.
‘The
sentence I wrote’ refers to a specific inscription. This is being compared to
another sentence, namely the one I heard. The ones I wrote and heard are the
same in the sense of consisting of the same sequence of words. In saying that
they are the same sentence, ‘sentence’ refers to a syntactic object. In most
situations we implicitly understand from context which sentence concept is being
used. When we want to consider a specific instance, we can refer to it as an
inscription or an utterance. There are various ways an individualized instance
of a sentence may be used and various functions it may serve. I will focus on
concepts that relate to sending and receiving information that the sender
expects to be shared and that relates to the perspective the sender may have on
their own personalized information.
Basic Concepts: A personalized statement is any instance of a declarative sentence that is used ( or at least appears to be used) with an intent to propose or focus on information. A personalized proposition is a statement in which such information is clear enough for the purposes at hand. It is extremely common for a statement uttered or written to be heard or read by others giving rise to personalized statements for each of them. The result S of this is a shared statement, and to the extent that the information in S is clear S is a shared proposition. The word ‘proposition’ may also refer to the private information or to shared information being proposed.
A personalized question is any individualized instance of a interrogative sentence which is used, or at least appears to be used, with an intent to request information. A personalized query is a question requesting information where the person knows clearly enough for the purposes at hand what type of information would satisfy the request. The concept of shared applies to questions and queries in the same manner as it applies to statements and propositions. For a simple query the type of information requested can easily be given by a single proposition. For more complicated queries it is usually more convenient to provide the information by using a number of propositions, altho in principle we could always conjoin these to form a single proposition. Thus I conceptualize appropriate answers to queries as propositions. A more detailed analysis of this concept is given in Section 2.
Summary
A sentence is a syntactic object.
A statement is an instance of a declarative sentence which appears to be
informational.
A proposition is a statement which clearly proposes information.
A question is an instance of an interrogative sentence which at least appears
to request information.
A query is a question which clearly requests information.
Supplementary Comment: If P says that some sentence was spoken softly, or that it was written in bold face type, then P is thinking of these sentences as physical units. A single physical instance of a sentence, say an utterance, may convey somewhat different information to different listeners. My net for understanding focuses on personalized rather than physical instances because they are more relevant to information.
SECTION 1 STATEMENTS AND PROPOSITIONS
Example 1a: Let D be the sentence ‘The door is open’. If I say that there is an instance of D in Section 0 then I am thinking of D as a syntactic object. When I say that D can be written or spoken many times then I am also thinking of D as a syntactic object. Each occurrence of D that I wrote is an instance of D. These instances will have a number of different physical representatives if I make multiple copies of this book. These instances are mentioned as illustrations and are not intended to propose any information. Thus they are not statement and are not being used as propositions. I could have conceptualized a statement so as to include those that are mentioned rather than used, but even declarative sentences that are used may not be intended to propose information. Someone might use D to get me to close the door even when I know that it is open. However it is normally clear what kind of information that any declarative statement of D might propose. If I utter D at a particular time while focusing on my back door then information is being proposed. Other statements of D may propose similar information about other doors at other times.
Example 1b: Consider the declarative sentence D ‘I am fine’. P asks me how I am. I respond with an instance D0 of D, but merely in the conventional manner of a polite response to a greeting. This may even convey information, such as I heard your greeting, but I do not intend to propose information about my state. Thus D0 is not a proposition. D0 is heard by P1,P2,P3. D0 has now given rise to three additional personalized instances D1,D2,D3 of D. {D0,D1,D2,D3} can be considered as a shared statement. P1 takes {D0,D1,D2,D3} as a formality, but P2 and P3 interpret it as providing information. Thus D2 and D3 are propositions while D0 and D1 are not. P2 knows that I was recently injured and thinks I meant that my injury is healing. P3 knows that I was extremely frustrated in my attempts to write this example. Thus they focus on different information. I do not consider D2 and D3 closely enough related to qualify as focusing on the same information. Thus even the shared statement {D2,D3} is not a shared proposition.
Example 1c: Consider the declarative sentence D ‘We will win this game’. It is easy to imagine an instance D1 in which the primary function is to inspire confidence, rather than to propose information. D1 could still be regarded as a proposition, if there was also at least some intent to propose information, and if the information being proposed seemed clear enough for the purposes at hand. Inspirational statements sometimes work best when we do not examine the information they might be used to propose. It is sufficient that they sound like they give the kind of information we want to believe. Close examination can undermine their inspirational function, and this may induce us to use rather vague statements.
Example 1d: The declarative sentence ‘No’ is an extreme example of a sentence whose instances do not usually propose the same information.
Supplementary Comment: Some sentences seem to propose information directly, that is without considering individualized instances. The sentence ‘George Washington was our first president’ might seem like a good example of such a sentence. On reflection it is easy to imagine a statement of this sentence which would not propose the information normally intended. It implicitly assumes some historical understanding by the speaker and audience. The sentence ‘George Washington was the first president of the United States of America’ comes closer to directly proposing what is intended, but it is easy to imagine someone who knows a different George Washington. Mathematical sentences are often considered as independent of their instances, however the information being proposed even by many mathematical sentences may depend on the context. Suppose I say that the sum of angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. This may convey different information, depending on whether or not you are thinking of euclidean geometry. I leave it to the reader to formulate a clear cut example of a sentence for which all imaginable instances propose the same information. Of course it is often useful to think of a sentence as providing information directly when most common instances give this proposition, and this is clear enough for many purposes.
Statements and Propositions: A statement is as an instance of a declarative sentence. A statement may be initiated by the individual using it or it may be a copy of a statement initiated by someone else. In this latter case, it is the statement received, and the one it copies is the statement sent. A statement is not always intended to propose information, even though this is a common function of declarative sentences. While this may result in poor communication, it is seldom due to any conceptual problem. A conceptual problem can occur when a statement is intended to be a proposition but is too vague to propose information. For instance, statements like D0 in example 1b are often normally given and received as conventional responses and thus as not being intended to propose any clear information.
A statement is vague if it is intended to propose information, but it is unclear what this information might be. Few statements are so clear that we have the information we are proposing in perfect focus. To classify a statement as a proposition makes no such absolute demands. I must be clear enough for the purpose at hand and clear enough so we can imagine some way to make a judgment about whether the information is correct. Vagueness is a matter of degree. In extreme cases a statement may be so vague that no information seems to be proposed by it. For others it may be more difficult to tell if they are clear enough for the purpose at hand. The purpose at hand may itself be somewhat vague. While vagueness can result in a communication problem, its roots may be conceptual. This may be due to minor carelessness, such as ignoring simple background, but it can be deeper. It may even be rooted in some basic inadequacy in part of the user’s net.
A statement may be vague because there is more than one proposition that can be associated with it. This may be a communication problem, rather than a conceptual one, especially when the statement is one which is received. The receiver may not know which of several possible items of information to associate with the received statement, even though the statement sent may be a proposition. If the information being sent is information the receiver imagined or can imagine then a brief discussion will often produce a received statement that is a proposition. Otherwise there may be a conceptual problem if the receiver uses a net that prevents reception of the information.
When a statement is a proposition we may try to assign a value of true or false, depending on whether or not the information proposed is substantially correct. Much energy can be expended trying to determine truth when the statement is too vague to be a proposition. Furthermore truth may not be the most useful perspective to use in judging a proposition. Depending on one’s purposes, plausibility may be more relevant, as discussed in Section 4.
Comments: Suppose a statement S was too vague to be a proposition when first received, but further discussion allows the receiver to see what information is being proposed. Should we say that S has now become a proposition, or should we say there is a new revised statement S1 which gives this information? I take the later perspective, however the former mode of expression can be used, if this happens to be more convenient at the time. This should cause no confusion when the shift is fairly apparent and stable.
Example 1e: When I was asked
where to find 1615
Example 1f: P says
that the population of
Example 1g: In the
third grade I was fascinated with maps and with areas. The maps I best recall
were those on which Greenland appears to be much larger than the
SECTION 2 QUESTIONS AND QUERIES
Questions and Queries: A question is an individualized instance of an interrogative sentence. The primary purpose of a question is to request information. In most cases asking a question indicates some uncertainty about information, so the most we would expect of the person who initiates a question is an awareness of several propositions that might supply the information. Often the person asking a question does not have candidates for answers, but is at least aware of the type of information that would suffice. Questions that could be answered by obtaining the type of information the individual asking the question intended are called queries. This is a specialized use of the word query. That we do not have a word whose ordinary meaning expresses this concept is one of the main factors motivating the conceptual analysis in this section.
Note: The phrase ‘is used as a query’ will often be abbreviated as ‘is a query’.
In the first draft of this section, the concept of a query included requests to someone else for information not already possessed. It also included many questions used to focus on a desire for information, even when no immediate answer was expected. In developing examples of queries, it became apparent that my concept of intentionally requesting information was somewhat vague. I was not clear about questions people ask when they already possess the relevant information. Linguistic analysis helped me determine how we usually use the phrase ‘intentional request’, but this was only a first step in clarifying this concept. I needed to decide what was useful for me, or whether it even mattered if concept of an intentional request was too vague to cover such cases. Teachers often ask questions which request information they already possess, and hence do not really want. They want information about what the student knows. Since the reason for making a request seems less relevant than the informational focus of the request, the concept of intentional request includes such requests, and hence classifies them as queries. Rhetorical question are also included as queries, as long as the information requested is clear enough. Purely polite questions are not classified as queries, since the user has almost no concern with the information the question might seem to request, an often has only a vague idea of what such information might be. A question is vague if it sounds like a informational request, but the user is unclear what this information might be. Thus a question sent might be a query, but the question received may be too vague to be a query, or vice-versa.
As with statements, vagueness of a question is a matter of degree. However since questions are usually rooted in some type of uncertainty, it can be more difficult to recognize when a question is too vague to be a query. A question may be clear enough even when the questioner has not imagined any candidates for an answer. It is a query if when such candidates are proposed they fit the expectations of the question. A question may be too vague to be a query even when the individual can formulate statements that might appear to be answers, since these statements may fail to be propositions. This can happen if there is a problem with or an inappropriate understanding of relevant concepts.
Questions as Puzzlements: Some queries are very specific, and can be answered by a single proposition. Others may be more general and call for an open-ended amount of information. As long as it is fairly clear what type of information is relevant general questions can be classified as queries. However it is easy to ask general questions that are too vague too be queries. P may be puzzled without having any clear idea of what type of information, if any, would reduce the puzzlement. In such situations P may have a tendency to ask vague general questions, instead of merely stating or describing the puzzlement. Such questions are often deliberate expressions of puzzlement, rather than actual requests for information. These are often worth a serious response. This may reduce the puzzlement, and perhaps focus on related questions that are not so vague. Thus a vague general question may be a prelude to a general query or a collection of queries that can be used to bring information into focus. The use of questions to express puzzlement is an important use of questions, but it can cause confusion since it easy to act as if such questions were queries.
Example 2a: Example: Joe is offered a discarded computer to use as a word processor. He is told that it only has 640K of RAM. He asks the series of questions below. Jill responds by sending propositions. At first Joe does not have enough background to receive them as propositions. Altho he has no specific candidates for answers to his earlier questions, he knows what type of information he is requesting. He wants information about these computer terms, and he wants this information to involve something he already understands. Thus these, as well as his later questions, are queries.
|
What is 640K of RAM? |
It is 640 kilobytes of random access memory. |
|
What is a kilobyte? |
It is 1000 bytes. |
|
What is a byte? |
The memory needed to store one character. |
|
What is a character? |
It is Anything that can be entered by a single keystroke. |
|
Is a letter ‘f’ a character? |
Yes. |
|
Is a comma a character? |
Yes. |
Example 2b: When I was teaching algebra, I was often asked how a negative times a negative could be a positive. Often I felt that this was an expression of puzzlement, rather than a request for any type information the questioner could imagine. It was difficult to respond to such a question, when it seemed rooted in a fuzzy idea of multiplication that somehow precluded the possibility of such a result. Thru experience I evolved several strategies to reduce the puzzlement, but none that work well with most students who ask this question. The problem was often too deeply rooted in their inadequate math net.
Example 2c: A teacher
illustrates the idea of time zones by saying that altho it is 2 P.M. here in
Example 2d: Jo knows that Santa is fictitious and ask where Santa lives. His mother responds with the statement ‘Santa lives at the north pole’. Jo’s question is a query and the response received is a proposition. In fact it is a correct conceptual proposition because of the shared net. Her younger brother Jim is listening. He believes Santa is a real person. Altho his information about the nature of Santa is incorrect, his net for thinking about Santa is adequate for his current purpose. Thus the question he hears is a query and the response received is a proposition. It is currently a false paraceptual proposition, but when Jim learns the ordinary net for Santa, he will be able to substitute a correct conceptual proposition. The answer his mother sent may have been less clear to her than the answer Jim received. Did she send him a conceptual answer to what for Jim was a paraceptual question?
Clarity: William James described the world as a blooming buzzing confusion. This fits my experience, and is the main reason why much of the information I consider is less than crystal clear. The world I experience is too complex to know in its fullness. This limits my knowledge, but it need not limit my clarity. Clarity depends largely on having concepts that are in focus and having the discipline to use them. It can take considerable effort to raise the level of clarity in many situations, and the effort to do so may yield little apparent payoff. The level of clarity I accept is influenced by conceptual factors and practical needs. I have only analyzed some of the complexities involved. I focus only on conceptual indeterminacy and my need for certainty.
Example 2e: When I first asked (I) below, I was thinking of the conclusion of a deduction as only giving information already contained in the premises. My question was a puzzlement rather than a query.
(I) How can a deduction yield new knowledge?
Reflection on this question was part of a conceptual analysis that involved a major revision in my net for understanding. This analysis has helped me move from a vague sense of puzzlement to a perspective from which I think that I can use (I) to ask a question that is a query. The query I am trying to bring into focus is so complex that I first decompose it into simpler ones.
(I1) How can a formal deduction yield new knowledge?
(I2) How can an informal deduction yield new knowledge?
While I use (I) to request for information about both types of deductions, I do not expect that the same type of information necessarily applies to these types of deductions. Both (I1) and (I2) can be further decomposed. As a start I would ask if the premises in a purely formal deduction are propositions in the sense I am using in this chapter. This query can be answered as no, since as formal objects they are not even intended to propose information. Continuing in this fashion, I think I could decompose (I1) into a number of queries, altho I may not be able to answer all of them. My decomposition of (I2) will be much more involved. I have partially developed a number of units for teaching logic. I give a more detailed decomposition of both (I1) and (I2) in one of these units, namely the one entitled "?? An Advanced Perspective on Mathematical Logic", but my decomposition is still inadequate for my purposes.
Conceptual Focus: Many of my concepts have been gradually acquired from a variety of situations going far back into childhood, mostly in the context of conventional nets that have been evolving for centuries, Such nets are far to vast for me to consider without making a gross simplification. Furthermore most of these concepts were learned without deliberate effort, and even later, few have been subjected to detailed conceptual analysis. Thus most of them vary in the degree to which I have them in focus. Thus there are cases in which it may not be clear how to apply a concept, or even whether to apply it. Most of the time I simply apply a concept whenever it seems appropriate, but I seldom stop to consider why it seems appropriate. In many cases I may be more influenced by habits of speaking than by clear conceptual considerations. Such habits evolved partially in the context of successful communication, so they often result in statements that are clear enough for the purposes at hand. At other times they can result in statements that are fairly vague.
Uncertainty: Altho information can be useful in suggesting tactics to achieve a specific goal, it can serve a less immediate function. It can give confidence in being able to cope with the future. To cope effectively a person needs the level of uncertainty to be tolerable. Correct information might seem best suited to this purpose, but in many situations this may not be the case, since a search for correct information can sometimes increase uncertainty. Since being certain and being wrong are far from incompatible, incorrect information can reduce uncertainty, as long as we do not know that it is incorrect. When incorrect information is clearly formulated, the fact that it is incorrect may be easier to discover, and this may increase uncertainty. Information involving remote concepts is often at best tenuously linked to ordinary experience or immediate feedback. It may be difficult to discover when such information is vague. Thus vague information is often an even better support for feeling certain, as long as it sounds as if it was clear. Perhaps many statements merely appear to propose information, when their main function is to provide the level and type of certainty needed. Many questions may also be rooted in such a need. Vague statements can answer such questions, since these questions only appear to be queries. This may be a major source of vague questions. The fact that they are not queries remains hidden for at least two reasons. They are stated in language that could be used to ask for information, and we may be more concerned with reducing the uncertainty than in having clear information. This is one reason that many questions that are primarily expressions of puzzlement are mistaken as queries. Vague answers to such questions may reduce feelings of puzzlement, and thus provide a more comfortable level of certainty.
Questions and Queries: Recall that a question can vary from extremely vague to extremely clear, and that the term query means a question which is clear enough for the purposes involved in asking it. Any interrogative sentence can be used to ask different questions, depending on the context. This causes no problem as long as the question is clear enough to be a query. In many cases there are many contexts in which such an interrogative makes a clear query. This may mislead us into thinking that we have made a query in a case where we have only asked a vague question. For example it is a query to ask what time zone you are in when traveling on the earth. Such a question would currently be vague or even meaningless when traveling on the moon.
Example 2f: Is 2 a composite in the ring of integers? I can easily use this question as a query, since my concepts of a composite in a ring is extremely clear. Bob has a concept of composite which has been limited to natural numbers. For him this question may be too vague to be a query. Does 2 = - 1· - 2 mean that 2 is a composite? Information about factoring 2 in the integers may be readily available, but Bob’s question will not be a query if his concept of composite is too vague to decide how to use this information. If Bob uses this factorization to decide that 2 is composite, then Bob does not share the appropriate net for rings. Thus the question he received may have been a query, but it was not the one I sent. To correct for this I must help Bob acquire more sophisticated factorization concepts for rings, or at least for the ring of integers.
Example 2g: Bo is the coach, and the big game is about to begin. He asks ‘are we going to win this game?’. In other situations such a question might be a request for information, so this sounds like a query. Simple answers might include ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘yes’. In the situation imagined, only some enthusiastic equivalent of the last of these would be considered appropriate. Bo is not really requesting information, but it is convenient to pretend that this is a query whose answer is yes. It is even convenient to have a vague concept of ‘yes’. Bo does not want the team to take this as inevitable, since absolute certainty might undermine effort. Bo also does not want a concept of ‘yes’ which suggests that ‘maybe’ is a better response. This might induce uncertainty that would undermine performance. An answer of no would also reduce uncertainty, but this is not the type of certainty desired.
Example 2h: What are the ultimate constituents of the world? This question is not a query for me, since I cannot even imagine the kind of information that I might be requesting. The kinds of answers others give always seem too vague to be propositions. For instance, near the end of a paper presenting a solution to the mind-body problem John Searle states the main thesis of his solution by saying that naive mentalism and naive physicalism are perfectly consistent with each other, and are both true. Earlier he describes these as follows.
Physicalism: All that exists in the world are physical particles with their properties and relations.
Mentalism: There really are mental states, and they can function to cause physical events in the world.
A large portion of his paper is intended to provide a perspective to clarify these statements, so perhaps Searle has clear information associated with his thesis and is sending a proposition. However the statement I received was too vague to be a proposition. I can link this to the fact that the statements of naive mentalism and naive physicalism that I received are also vague. This may partially be a communication problem, but it is mainly a conceptual one. My concepts of mental and physical are not metaphysical enough to present me with a mind-body problem. Perhaps this is a problem with my concepts, but I feel no need to use these concepts except in a common sense fashion. I even suspect Searle’s thesis is not a proposition. Perhaps his concepts are no more precise to him than they are to me. It is difficult for me to imagine how the statement of naive physicalism can propose information. I find the notion of all that exists in the world extremely vague. I am also uncertain about the notion of a physical particle. Are these the physical particles of modern physics, and if so do they include all those yet to be conceptualized or only those currently conceptualized?