Do electrons exist?

[robvalue]

I’ve given up having any objective criteria for what it means for something to "exist". All definitions end up being circular.

Like you say, all we can do is model to the best of our ability. We give names and attribute behaviour to parts of our models. If they can help us to predict future events in some way, then they are useful. But really all we're doing is trying to trace a drawing we can never see properly with big fat lines.

Well put.

Modern physics is my reason for choosing idealism over materialism-- the semantics of material as "stuff" are so stretched that its seems we're just tracing big fat lines over big fat lines.

Yeah, I can understand just using "material" or "physical" as interchangeable with "literally existent", as opposed to abstract, but you haven’t actually said anything by doing so. You certainly haven’t demonstrated that some things don’t/can’t exist, because they don’t fit whatever further definition of "material" you might like to use; that’s really just equivocating.

I’ve had pointless discussions like this before. I agree with someone that material means existent for the purposes of a discussion, then they try and say there’s some things that exist that aren’t material. That makes no sense either. That’s more equivocation.