Black holes

In contemporary mineral science:

Black holes are a thought form, a theoretical and mathematical concept conceived by Mineral science based on a view of the cosmos that only considers physical mineral matter, in order to explain a set of astronomical observations through mathematical models.

A black hole is thought of as a concept of a physical singularity in material time-space that explains mathematically why light cannot escape it, due to enormous and magnitudes of mass and energy that are so condensed that the laws of physics and time break down. The concept however comes with unsolved philosophical questions, e.g. how to explain what happens to matter in this physical singularity, or the reality of the absurd magnitudes of mass and energy never seen in any experienced reality.

Spiritual science

.. offers a meta-paradigm or worldview representation, and states that mineral matter is like the lowest form emanating from a spiritual reality which has higher forms not visible to humanity's current mainstream waking consciousness, but that càn be perceived, experienced and explored with different stages of clairvoyant consciousness. The cosmos is part of an evolutionary dynamic (see Cosmic fractal) which includes different stage transitions, as explained under Three dimensions of evolution .. whereby the mineral emerges from, and disappears again into the astral, lower and higher spirit worlds. Hence, from such perspective it is 'normal' to perceive or state mineral matter disappearing in a center, as this corresponds to the transformative state transition called 'pralaya' with the eastern theosophical term. Appearing and disappearing can be seen as state transitions between the astral and physical world (see eg also Schema FMC00.582, or Comets, or UFO's ..).

For this reason, spiritual science posits that the observations of mineral matter have to be viewed in a framework of the etheric Formative forces (see Mathematics of the etheric) and the concept of counterspace, which is characterized by such a genuine non-physical singularity mathematically. Furthermore the physical interpretation of light has to be put in perspective of the Spectrum of elements and ethers, to reframe the interpretation of astronomical observations. See eg Nick Thomas in References section below.

Keywords used by Rudolf Steiner in his lectures to describe this property of negative gravity is 'suction' and counterspace, see Mathematics of the etheric#Rudolf Steiner's indications.

Aspects

"Cologne Cathedral"
- in various lectures, Rudolf Steiner often used the example of Cologne Cathedral, which was for a while (1880-1884) the tallest man-made structure on Earth at the time, and with 157m surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt (which had held the record for millennia until the construction of other tall buildings in the 19th century). It remains a good example of what humanity is able to first imagine as an idea, and then create with mineral matter.
- The context in which Cologne Cathedral was mentioned was to describe that nothing gets lost: even if a physical creation in matter will disappear and get destroyed with the Earth, all that Man creates will get regenerated in future new forms, the next one being the astral Condition of Form (after the current physical Condition of Form, in the current mineral Condition of Life). See Schema FMC00.057D on Three dimensions of evolution; see also the related Seeds for future worlds.
- The maybe rather cryptic or puzzling statements from Rudolf Steiner lectures of the 1905 to 1910 timeframe (see examples below) were later put in a mathematical framework by Rudolf Steiner with the concepts of counterspace for describing the etheric formative forces. For an introduction to the theme and paradigm shift of the etheric, see lecture by George Adams (and more on Formative forces.
Note: what is explained on this topic page, that state transitions and pralaya correspond to vantage points for matter to emerge and disappear, is also is the key to positioning the so-called 'big bang' in current physical astronomy part of mineral science. See also tentative Schema FMC00.293 on Evolution Module 3 - Integrating traditions. Note that the current solar system as we know it, is limited to the Earth stage of planetary evolution, it looked completely different in the previous Old Moon stage, and will again be very different in the next Future Jupiter stage.
various perspectives
- whereas concepts of big bang, black holes and dark matter are accepted by a mainstream majority in the community of physics and astronomy, there are also - as always - notable astrophysicists and cosmologists who have been skeptical and not convinced. Concepts of big bang and black holes are related because they symbolically or conceptually constitute the emergence and disappearance of matter.
  - An example of someone who intuitively seems to realize is Roger Penrose, whose Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) proposes that the universe goes through repeated cycles of expansion and contraction, with each cycle ending in a 'Big Bang', but not as a singular event in time. Paul Steinhardt is another key proponent of the cyclic model, which suggests that the universe goes through infinite cycles of expansion and contraction, whereby the Big Bang is just one phase of an eternal process, rather than the singular beginning of time.
    - Note such cyclical approaches already open the door or form a bridge to the Three dimensions of evolution in spiritual science, at least from a theoretical point of view, even without accepting the spiritual nature or make-up of the cosmos and the planes or worlds of consciousness.
  - Note Penrose and Steinhardt are just two examples, there are many more, for example also Hannes Alfvén, John Moffat, Laura Mersini-Houghton and others have expressed sketicism about black holes .. often on the basis that the concept is mainly based on gravity and general relativity, whereas other laws might have to be taken into account, whether electromagnetic forces in plasma cosmology, quantum effects, etc.
See also Worldview and 'the foolish extrapolation' on Top five problems with current science, as in short: the limits of one knowledge representation, in this case the mathematics of mineral science, lead to anomalies and contradictions that require a meta-representation such as spiritual science to resolve the dichotomy. The limits of mineral science and thought forms derived by foolish extrapolation from application of the laws of mathematics beyond the realm of reality where they apply, is also found in the big bang, dark matter, etc.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.057A is the schema specifically within one planetary stage, like Earth. For Earth it is the fourth mineral CoL4 that is important for development of Man. See further: Earth rounds perspective.

Schema FMC00.219 is an illustration by Rudolf Steiner of the Mars and Mercury passages in the Earth's mineral round or CoL=4

Schema FMC00.057D provides an explanatory overview of the 343 states in the solar system evolution.

Lecture coverage and references

1905-10-26-GA093A

During the First Earth Round [Condition of Life, see Three dimensions of evolution] the human kingdom gradually separated itself off. Man became more human, the animal more animal. The external body of man became slowly more human.
During the Second Round the animal kingdom separated itself off,
during the Third the plant kingdom,
during the Fourth the mineral kingdom. Then Man made a further ascent. The first three Rounds were repetitions of earlier conditions and a preparation, in order in the Fourth Round, in the Lemurian Race, to take up something new. Now Man works upon the mineral kingdom.
A time will come when, as the product of his activity, he will have worked over and transformed the mineral kingdom, so that no particle will then remain whose nature has not been changed by the artifice of Man. Then the whole can be transmuted into pure astral forms. That is the redemption of a kingdom. In the Fourth Round man will have redeemed the mineral kingdom, when he will have transformed it by his work upon it.
Then everything goes into pralaya; no mineral kingdom will be there, but the whole Earth will have become a plant. Man will then have been raised half a stage higher and everything else with him; for example in the Fifth Round, Cologne Cathedral will grow as a plant.
One is not working in vain when one gives form to the mineral kingdom. The Cologne Cathedral will eventually grow as plant world out of what will then be the ground. In the atmosphere of the Fifth Round, we find in living cloud formations everything which today has been painted. There we have to do with a repetition at a higher stage where all our work in the mineral world around us grows.
In the Fifth Round we redeem the plant world, in the Sixth the animal and in the Seventh Round the human kingdom. Then man will be mature enough to tread a new Planet. In order that he might develop upwards, the other kingdoms had to some extent to be pushed downwards and he must later redeem them. After the Seventh Round and a Pralaya he will go over to another Planet.

1909-04-18-GA110

The evolution of the individual is naturally the thing to be first spiritually considered. Leonardo da Vinci has risen higher through what he has achieved; that is his ascent. But we ask ourselves whether the great thoughts, the great impulses, which great men have imprinted on the substance of the Earth, do not have any importance for the future of the Earth?
Will the future break and grind the Earth into dust, and will all that Man has made out of the Earth disappear together with its existence?
You admire the Cathedral of Cologne! In a comparatively short time there will certainly not be one stone of it lying on the other; but the fact that Man once expressed his thoughts in stone in this cathedral, will that have no significance for the whole Earth?
We are now disregarding that which Man takes with him away from the Earth, we are considering the Earth itself. We see that, in fact, a planet grows always smaller in the course of its development. It contracts. That is the destiny of the substance of planets; but it is not all, that is only something which the physical eye and physical instruments can observe in the planets. There is a further development of the material substance — beyond that point.
Let us now consider this further development of matter, and with this I am touching on what I said will perhaps be impossible for you to understand with the comprehension of the present day. It is a fact that the Earth is continually contracting, hence matter tends towards the center from all sides. And now I say — be it understood consciously, not only fully conscious of the law of the conservation of force, but also fully conscious of facts known to every occultist — I say: Matter draws together more and more towards a center, and the strange thing is that in that center matter disappears.
Imagine that you have a piece of something which contracts more and more towards its center. In its center it disappears. It does not get pushed over to its other side, it absolutely disappears into nothing in its own central point!
So that you can imagine to yourselves that, as the material parts contract towards the center, the whole of the Earth will some day disappear in that central point.
But this is not all: in the same measure in which it disappears in the central point, it reappears again in the circumference. Out there in space it is coming back again. At one point in space matter disappears and emerges again at another. Out there it is coming forth anew. The substance disappears in one place and from outside it returns again.
But it returns in such a way that it brings back with it all that the beings who have worked on the planets have imprinted on its substance; naturally not in its present form, but in a form which this transformation has given to it.
In this way you see the Cathedral of Cologne returning from the other side, its material particles having disappeared in the center. Nothing, absolutely nothing, of that which has been accomplished on a planet is ever lost, it all comes back again from the other side.

Wikipedia

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing - no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light - can escape from it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole.
The boundary of the region from which no escape is possible is called the event horizon. Although the event horizon has an enormous effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, according to general relativity it has no locally detectable features. In many ways, a black hole acts like an ideal black body, as it reflects no light.
Moreover, quantum field theory in curved spacetime predicts that event horizons emit Hawking radiation, with the same spectrum as a black body of a temperature inversely proportional to its mass. This temperature is on the order of billionths of a kelvin for black holes of stellar mass, making it essentially impossible to observe directly.
Objects whose gravitational fields are too strong for light to escape were first considered in the 18th century by John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace. The first modern solution of general relativity that would characterize a black hole was found by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916, although its interpretation as a region of space from which nothing can escape was first published by David Finkelstein in 1958. Black holes were long considered a mathematical curiosity; it was not until the 1960s that theoretical work showed they were a generic prediction of general relativity. The discovery of neutron stars by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967 sparked interest in gravitationally collapsed compact objects as a possible astrophysical reality.
Black holes of stellar mass are expected to form when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses (M_☉) may form. There is consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of most galaxies.
The presence of a black hole can be inferred through its interaction with other matter and with electromagnetic radiation such as visible light. Matter that falls onto a black hole can form an external accretion disk heated by friction, forming quasars, some of the brightest objects in the universe. Stars passing too close to a supermassive black hole can be shred into streamers that shine very brightly before being "swallowed." If there are other stars orbiting a black hole, their orbits can be used to determine the black hole's mass and location. Such observations can be used to exclude possible alternatives such as neutron stars. In this way, astronomers have identified numerous stellar black hole candidates in binary systems, and established that the radio source known as Sagittarius A*, at the core of the Milky Way galaxy, contains a supermassive black hole of about 4.3 million solar masses.
On 11 February 2016, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo collaboration announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves, which also represented the first observation of a black hole merger. As of December 2018, eleven gravitational wave events have been observed that originated from ten merging black holes (along with one binary neutron star merger).
On 10 April 2019, the first direct image of a black hole and its vicinity was published, following observations made by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2017 of the supermassive black hole in Messier 87's galactic centre.

and

A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with mass on the order of millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (M_☉). Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light.

Discussion

Interpretation of light and matter

In a spiritual scientific view as explained by the various planetary stages of evolution, see Overview of solar system evolution, the gradual unfoldment of the Spectrum of elements and ethers becomes clear. Light arose out during the Old Sun stage. Therefore, the fact that there is no light coming from a source we can perceive due to its impact does not have to be correlated at all to the existance of physical mineral matter as exists on Earth. See again: Top five problems with current science.

Collapsing gravity

Gravity is a concept and law of physics that follows from mathematics in an euclidean space and experiments on Earth.

However beyond the Earth, for the wider cosmos, one should not think only in terms of laws for the mineral physical matter as we do on Earth. The laws of nature are very different for the etheric forces and astral and spirit worlds.

To position, see also: Four kinds of lawfullness in 1921-06-24-GA205 and 1921-06-24-GA205

The characteristics observed for a black hole are attraction or negative gravity, this can be regarded as suction or attraction when considering the framework of Mathematics of the etheric#Rudolf Steiner's indications.

Supermassive black holes

Supermassive black holes have been identified to be at the center of our Milky Way galaxy (Sagittarius A) as well as other galaxies such as M31.

Wachsmuth, in 'The evolution of mankind' already points out the link with the ancient meaning of the zodiac sign Sagittarius based on the ancient clairvoyance, when Man could still perceive spiritual beings where today star patterns are observed.

Modern instruments show that the greatest concentration of material processes occurs in the direction of Sagittarius. From this part of the heavens comes the most intensive bombardement of rays. But this is only the physical aspect of this peculiar nature of this region. It is astounding that ancient Man, out of his senstive faculties and picture-consciousness, should have been able to designate this region by such an apt image as the archer shouting the poisoned arrow, at the same time showing the archer as centaur, half man and half animal.

He continues:

.. another of the primeval experiences was the polarity between Sagittarius with its darkness and clinging to matter, its poisoned arrow and its centaur, and the ligher opposite side of Gemini.

Related pages

References and further reading

Nick Thomas: 'Space and counterspace: a new science of gravity, time and light' (2008)