Cardinality of a set that consists of all existing cardinalities

There is no "number of cardinalities". As you say, there are so many that they cannot form a set.

Suppose that ${\mathcal A}$ is a set whose elements are sets, with the property that if $A,B\in{\mathcal A}$ and $A\ne B$, then $|A|\ne|B|$, i.e., $A,B$ have different cardinalities. Let $C=\bigcup{\mathcal A}$, i.e., $C=\bigcup_{A\in{\mathcal A}}A$. Clearly, $|C|\ge|A|$ for each $A\in{\mathcal A}$. Let $D={\mathcal P}(C)$ be the power set of $C$. Then $|D|>|C|$ so $|D|>|A|$ for any $A\in{\mathcal A}$. This proves that there cannot be a set of all cardinalities, because given any such set, we just found a new cardinality different from all the ones in the set.

Of course, if ${\mathcal A}$ is countable, this shows that the ''number'' of cardinalities is not countable.


There is a small remark that may be worth making. The argument works just as well if we do not require that all sets in ${\mathcal A}$ have different cardinalities, but simply that for any prescribed cardinality we want to consider, there is at least one set in ${\mathcal A}$ of that size (but there may more than one). This is slightly more general, but there is also a technical advantage, namely, in this form, the argument does not depend in any version of the axiom of choice.

(Finally: I just checked Pete's nice note that is linked to in the body of the question. His fact 20 there is essentially the argument I've shown here.)