Thank you for the response,

[Since you didn’t really address my claim, I can’t be sure whether I made myself clear enough and whether we actually disagree, so I’ll try again.]
As I understand it, the reason people look for “gravitons” comes from generalizing from other phenomena and fundamental forces in which the force is carried by particles. As a result of the anomalies in the “force of gravity,” where we seemingly observe an effect without a medium transmitting the force, we tend to think that there really is such a particle, and that we will find it in the future. For that reason I preferred to discuss other forces for which the particle carrying the “force” has been found, but in principle one could discuss gravitons as well.
Let us assume for the sake of discussion that gravitons are found and described as carriers of the “force” of gravity. In the end we still will not be able to “explain” why these particles carry this force or embody a certain interaction; we will only be able to define the interaction. In that sense, any regress we undertake (or that could ever be undertaken in science) regarding a given phenomenon will ultimately run up against a final datum. At the end of that regress, the datum will be certain fixed relations (regularity) among phenomena (particles?). Would you agree to this lean description? If so, then there is no disagreement between us, and the rest is terminology…
[This is not parallel to Hume’s problem of causality, since I do assume the regular recurrence of phenomena in the future as well (regularity), and I am “bracketing” the problem of induction.]

As for the second issue…
I read the article you referred me to, and I indeed see clearly that by “intelligent designer” you mean an X that is disconnected from the regularity of phenomena and also underlies them.
You use the claim that it is improbable that something complex would come into being on its own.
As I understand it (and I’ll refer to this below as the position that makes the assumption of an intelligent designer unnecessary), even the “Big Bang” theory has to assume some kind of regularity, and only because of that did certain conditions lead to the formation of the universe. If so, the evolutionary biologist assumes that on the basis of fundamental laws of nature, which he accepts as a final given, life could arise over several billions of years through random motions, and afterward more developed forms could again evolve through random motions.
So we have shifted the discussion to the most basic laws (which perhaps—and regarding some of them it is even clear—we have not yet finally cracked) underlying empirical phenomena. Now the discussion is whether they are primary, or whether we have to go one step further back. That is: are those laws a final datum to be accepted as they are, without asking what lies behind them—something like an epistemic atom (which ties into the first topic)? Or is it reasonable to assume that there is another factor underlying them (an intelligent designer), and that this factor is to be accepted as a final datum about which no further question should be asked? I tend to think that this final regress is of no benefit, because it adds nothing, since even after it one can still ask how something complex came into being on its own (the designer too is complex, I assume).
True, one may reply that it is not proper to apply to something that underlies phenomena (whose cause is itself) a claim taken from the world of contingent phenomena by its very nature. But that is a reply I see as equally valid against your argument in that article, where you illustrate from the second law of thermodynamics that things do not “arrange themselves” on their own. In other words, you cannot apply the law you see in the world of existing phenomena to the laws that underlie it, on the assumption that they are self-caused—that is, that there is nothing underlying them on the ontological plane.

Again, sorry for the length, but in my opinion it is hard to clarify these subtleties more briefly than this.
Thank you very much, and have a blessed week.

Hello,
I did not ignore your claim. I addressed it, and I think you did not understand what I said. Even if we learned from experience that forces are carried by particles, our conclusion is still that there are forces. So what if the conclusion was learned on the basis of experience? Our “seeing” (with the “mind’s eye”) is of course also based on experience, and still we see that there is a force and not merely a law. So I claim that the scientific finding speaks not only about the form of the law but also about its ontic content (= the force). I claim that we “see” this; otherwise we would not be looking for gravitons. And this does not at all depend on the question whether we will find them or not. I am asking why we are looking for them, and from this I infer that apparently our assumption is that there is a force and not merely a law. That is all.
By the way, the fact that we have prior experience is itself only the result of applying the same conception to forces studied in the past (= photons in electromagnetism). After all, there too you could have claimed that this is only a law and not a force. Your guarantor needs a guarantor. But as I said, this is not important for my argument.

As for the proof of God’s existence, I refer you to my second and third booklets on the site. The assumption that every complex thing has a component is true only of things within our experience. God is not such a thing, and therefore He is not vulnerable to that attack.
See here: https://mikyab.net/%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94/

All right, I’m dropping the first issue because I’m not sure whether I was understood or whether this is going anywhere…

As for the second issue: I presented the argument that God too is vulnerable to the attack that every complex thing has a component, but I also presented the counterargument (which I agree with) that the idea is mistaken, since we cannot apply that same regularity to something that is a final datum grounding the regularity (something primary).
But my claim was that in a similar way one should not apply the second law of thermodynamics to the fundamental laws, on the assumption that they are self-caused and that they are what ground all the phenomena in reality.

I am not applying any law of nature to them. There are special laws of nature in the world, and the question is why these particular laws and not any other ordinary system (which would not have produced any special creature such as living beings). When there is something special, there ought to be a reason or rationale for it. This is the principle of sufficient reason (which is relevant even to entities that have existed forever. See Richard Taylor’s book Metaphysics). A law is not an entity, and therefore the one who “legislated” it is the primary entity.
In principle it is possible that the laws have no rationale and are just there because they are there. But the more reasonable assumption is that if they are special, they have a reason or ground. And therefore it is more plausible to assume that there is someone responsible for them. I did not assume any regularity regarding Him. By the way, I am not at all sure that the assumption that there is regularity is a product of experience rather than of reason.

If the regularity is primary, then in my view it is not correct to ask for the reason for its existence. The search for causality, to which we are all committed, is based on the fact that we live in a world that operates according to a certain regularity. But we have no ability to apply the search for causality to the law itself, just as one cannot apply that search to God (if we assume His existence).
And put differently: since an ongoing search for causality leads to an infinite regress, we have to stop at the last datum whose existence we identify and assume (so long as we do not identify something more basic) that it is a final datum.
Similarly, one could assume the existence of matter (or energy in some form that can undergo various transformations) as a final datum with nothing behind it or at its basis.
P.S. I am arguing according to my understanding and setting aside the “principle of sufficient reason” as certain philosophers understood it.

We are talking about the fundamental laws, but the principle of causality is not a law of nature; it is a law of reason, and therefore it does not stop there. When there is something special, there has to be a reason or rationale for it. By the same token, you would not say that with respect to these fundamental laws it is not correct to assume that what they say will indeed occur. That is the nature of a law, whether fundamental or not.
And as I said, a law is not an entity, so it cannot be the cause of anything. There has to be some entity that is the ground/cause/reason for the law. The last datum whose existence we identify is not necessarily the ultimate cause, unless in your opinion it is enough to explain its own very existence. I see no reason (!?) to assume that with respect to the laws of nature, even the most fundamental ones.
As stated, the regress is also not infinite, because when we reach the last link it is supposed to be its own cause, and there we will not seek any further explanation/cause/reason.

The same applies to matter: as far as we know it, it is not self-caused. Physics also teaches us that it did not exist forever.

But it seems to me that we are already starting to repeat ourselves a bit.