How do you distinguish between something that is undetectable and something that doesn't exist?

[AndrésC64]

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You know, like God.

[jshm2]

Something "undetectable" will have parameters that can be worked towards to eventually detect it. Think about subatomic particles; for centuries, science declared atoms were the smallest particle as they could not detect anything smaller.

But "exist" is a different thing altogether as it can be a matter of opinion, perception or time.

Cars didn't exist in the Roman era, but they had other means of transport, and even if it did exist, it would have been pointless to have it as all the parts, fuel and services would be near impossible.

But on the other side, your dreams don't exist, yet you can see, hear, smell and even touch and taste in some.

[AndrésC64]

I'm talking about exist IRL. Existing somewhere other than your head.

[Maybe_Maybe_not]

Using the concept of God then, I can assert that it is undetectable because God is not a scientific concept. Now, for something that does not exist, well, I cannot even talk about it because it doesn't exist lol, if I do talk about it it's because I'm creating it, using my imagination.

[NathanDavis]

by effect, and cause...

all the greatest minds did that, often

[AndrésC64]

What do you mean by "effect and cause"? And "All the greatest minds did that, often."?

I'm looking for evidence to distinguish between something that doesn't exist and something that can't be detected.

[NathanDavis]

as they like to say in funny ways "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

science can work this way too... for us to be able to detect something will always fall under our own limitations as lesser beings... this means we have less knowledge and technology available

and this was exactly the case with some of the greatest minds to ever lived, they would see the effects in and or something... and they "knew" there was a cause for it, they were able to theorize about it, and also "predicted" what it was going to be, and called it a name

they just didn't have the means to prove it yet, because the knowledge and technology was not enough to DETECT it yet

these forces and energies and concepts were not impossible to detect or prove per se... it was just us not being capable enough of such but... eventually we got there, and we will get there again at some point in the future

so yeah, this is how science works too... sometimes

[AndrésC64]

But we don't say that something exists until we can actually detect it. That goes for atoms and black holes and the higgs boson. We had good reason to believe that they existed. But we didn't say that they actually exist until we could detect them. So again, how do you tell that something actually exists if you can't detect it?

[NathanDavis]

actually we do that...

in fact, if you know about Fermi... he was even awarded a Nobel Prize on some of his work, which happened to be not accurate and proven way later... so we definitely say something exists and we name it before we can properly detect it

but that's our ego... I think

[AndrésC64]

No. We don't say that something exists until we can detect it. Again, Higgs boson, Hawking radiation, black holes, gravitational waves, gravitational lensing, germ theory, etc..

[NathanDavis]

but yes... yes we do

the boson and other are fundamental particles, that we know must exist, and we do say they exist, which is why we are trying to detect them

same with forms of radiation... same with black holes, we know they exist or must exist, so we say they exist

gravitational waves... which were detected already so we say it even louder

and yes... Nobel prizes are given on wrong or not accurate conclusions as well

[AndrésC64]

No, no, no. We check to see if our hypotheses are correct. We don't know that they are correct until we verify by being able to detect them.

[NathanDavis]

except... the times in which they knew it was correct

but there was no technology enough to replicate the experiments, and once the technology was available, literal billions of dollars were confidently spent... to replicate what was known to exist