Philosophical Issues of Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper explores philosophical questions raised by black holes, including their implications for metaphysics, thermodynamics, information theory, and the nature of determinism, highlighting their role in understanding science and philosophy boundaries.

Contribution

It reviews key philosophical issues related to black holes, connecting physical phenomena with metaphysical and epistemological debates.

Findings

Black holes challenge traditional views of space and time.

They raise questions about the nature of information and determinism.

Black hole physics informs philosophical discussions on science and ontology.

Abstract

Black holes are extremely relativistic objects. Physical processes around them occur in a regime where the gravitational field is extremely intense. Under such conditions, our representations of space, time, gravity, and thermodynamics are pushed to their limits. In such a situation philosophical issues naturally arise. In this chapter I review some philosophical questions related to black holes. In particular, the relevance of black holes for the metaphysical dispute between presentists and eternalists, the origin of the second law of thermodynamics and its relation to black holes, the problem of information, black holes and hypercomputing, the nature of determinisim, and the breakdown of predictability in black hole space-times. I maintain that black hole physics can be used to illuminate some important problems in the border between science and philosophy, either epistemology and ontology.