First glimpse inside burnt scroll after 2,000 years

[Justin Swanton]

Even with my limited knowledge, I know that black holes definitely can have volume and substance and surface area.  I think you may be confusing back holes and singularities, but singularities are things that we are pretty sure don't actually exist - partly because we already know that General Relativity doesn't really apply at very small distances, and partly because time dilation means that they wouldn't have had time to form yet.

I'm not a physicist either but I get it that the main argument against a singularity is time dilation - a slowing rate of collapse from the POV an external observer, but nobody seems to know whether that corresponds to any slowing rate of collapse of the matter itself in the black hole.

Problem with the time dilation argument is that from the matter's POV there should be no slowing at all which means the matter should contract really fast to - what? The theory is that matter simply collapses to a more fundamental level of subatomic particle and that there are several levels of collapse none of which reach zero volume and infinite density (which isn't the same as infinite mass). But this is all theoretical . It assumes one or more levels of collapse past the neutron star level and that no matter how strong the gravity the collapse will never reach zero volume, because it also assumes that the resistance to further collapse by the smallest (?) particle is greater than the the greatest gravitational pull (gravity of course can never become infinite). "Rumors, rumors but no blasted news!" to quote J. Jonah Jameson.

OK, all this is plausible, if not proven. So no need to invoke philosophical concepts in this case. Does that make philosophy nonsense? No, just possibly - mmmh...I tend to probably - misapplied in this case.

Incidentally, I think it a little hasty to affirm that "singularities are things that we are pretty sure don't actually exist." Who is "we"?

"No doubt someone who actually knows about black holes and singularities could point out all the gross errors in what I'm saying, but that's OK because I'm not a philosopher and I'm not claiming some arcane meta-knowledge.  I acknowledge that the astro-physicists know far more than me."

Then I suppose one can acknowledge that philosophers know far more than you as well. 

[Imperial Dave]

Wibble....

[Justin Swanton]

....wobble.

[Jim Webster]

Bringing philosophy back into period 

  Nor was it only in Athens that men played the part of tyrants as did he [Aristion, tyrant of Athens, 88BC] and before him Critias and his fellow philosophers. But in Italy, too, some of the Pythagoreans and those known as the Seven Wise Men in other parts of the Grecian world, who undertook to manage public affairs, governed more cruelly, and made themselves greater tyrants than ordinary despots; whence arose doubt and suspicion concerning other philosophers, whether their discourses about wisdom proceeded from a love of virtue or as a comfort in their poverty and idleness. We see many of these now, obscure and poverty stricken, wearing the garb of philosophy as a matter of necessity, and railing bitterly at the rich and powerful, not because they have any real contempt for riches and power, but from envy of the possessors of the same. Those whom they speak ill of have much better reason for despising them. (These things the reader should consider as spoken against the philosopher Aristion, who is the cause of this digression.)
This is from
 Appian's History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars The translation was made by Horace White;

[Justin Swanton]

Bringing philosophy back into period 

  Nor was it only in Athens that men played the part of tyrants as did he [Aristion, tyrant of Athens, 88BC] and before him Critias and his fellow philosophers. But in Italy, too, some of the Pythagoreans and those known as the Seven Wise Men in other parts of the Grecian world, who undertook to manage public affairs, governed more cruelly, and made themselves greater tyrants than ordinary despots; whence arose doubt and suspicion concerning other philosophers, whether their discourses about wisdom proceeded from a love of virtue or as a comfort in their poverty and idleness. We see many of these now, obscure and poverty stricken, wearing the garb of philosophy as a matter of necessity, and railing bitterly at the rich and powerful, not because they have any real contempt for riches and power, but from envy of the possessors of the same. Those whom they speak ill of have much better reason for despising them. (These things the reader should consider as spoken against the philosopher Aristion, who is the cause of this digression.)
This is from
 Appian's History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars The translation was made by Horace White;

Philosophers and philosophers, rather like scientists and scientists.

[Duncan Head]

I see that, wherever we stand on the philosophical spectrum, we still have rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty 

[Justin Swanton]

I see that, wherever we stand on the philosophical spectrum, we still have rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty 

.... With areas of metaphysical certitude. A happy thought. 😁