I had, but I had the wrong idea about it. At a glance, Mohrhoff’s ontology appears to be as follows. There is a fundamental reality which is standard-issue Formless Infinite Oneness, and then there is a multiplicity of elementary physical facts (‘observables’ taking definite values) out of which everything physical is made. Every single one of those facts is utterly uncaused, both with respect to location in space and time, and the specific value taken. But quantum mechanics gives us the probabilities.
I do not, so far, see anything illuminating in what he says about the relationship between the Oneness and the physical facts. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything illuminating about the relationship between the world of particulars and a world of allegedly primordial undifferentiated being. I think people are prone to misidentify a straightforward cessation of cognition as an experience of ‘cognition of pure being’.
But I will say something about the idea of uncaused fundamental events, which is actually orthodoxy and not just in Mohrhoff. (I might wonder what role the Oneness has in Mohrhoff’s theory if he thinks quantum events are absolutely uncaused, but evidently he’s promoting an idealist ontology in which those events are actually free choices of the cosmic mind. So it’s a combination of absolute idealism, belief in free will, and the ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics!) Celia Green has already said it well:
″… no one has noticed the reification of statistical concepts that goes on, and physicists talk of a thing being ‘caused by chance’ as if ‘chance’ sat there pushing the right proportion of electrons to the left. If an electron chooses to turn left, this is either caused by something, which may or may not be known to the human race at present, or it is caused by nothing, which is shockingly inconceivable. In neither case is it caused by a cosy little homebody figure called ‘Chance’.” (The Human Evasion, Chapter 10)
I had, but I had the wrong idea about it. At a glance, Mohrhoff’s ontology appears to be as follows. There is a fundamental reality which is standard-issue Formless Infinite Oneness, and then there is a multiplicity of elementary physical facts (‘observables’ taking definite values) out of which everything physical is made. Every single one of those facts is utterly uncaused, both with respect to location in space and time, and the specific value taken. But quantum mechanics gives us the probabilities.
I do not, so far, see anything illuminating in what he says about the relationship between the Oneness and the physical facts. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything illuminating about the relationship between the world of particulars and a world of allegedly primordial undifferentiated being. I think people are prone to misidentify a straightforward cessation of cognition as an experience of ‘cognition of pure being’.
But I will say something about the idea of uncaused fundamental events, which is actually orthodoxy and not just in Mohrhoff. (I might wonder what role the Oneness has in Mohrhoff’s theory if he thinks quantum events are absolutely uncaused, but evidently he’s promoting an idealist ontology in which those events are actually free choices of the cosmic mind. So it’s a combination of absolute idealism, belief in free will, and the ensemble interpretation of quantum mechanics!) Celia Green has already said it well:
″… no one has noticed the reification of statistical concepts that goes on, and physicists talk of a thing being ‘caused by chance’ as if ‘chance’ sat there pushing the right proportion of electrons to the left. If an electron chooses to turn left, this is either caused by something, which may or may not be known to the human race at present, or it is caused by nothing, which is shockingly inconceivable. In neither case is it caused by a cosy little homebody figure called ‘Chance’.” (The Human Evasion, Chapter 10)