Dear Christian, et al,
My condolences also on the passing of Dr. Leiter.
I just read, as best I could, your essay today. I must say that I'm a simple person with no qualifications in physics. However, I did find some of the basic points in your analysis to be complimentary to some of my purely conceptual thinking.
In particular, it seems obvious that no form of matter could be contained within a dimensionless singularity without invoking metaphysical solutions that allow some dimensional exportation while retaining mass effects locally (more later). As for ideas regarding supermassive material objects, as you discuss the densest confirmed objects are pulsars and neutron stars composed of primarily neutrons with perhaps a quark-gluon plasma core.
But as I understand (and you describe on the basis of theory), those objects seem to be limited to less than 2 Solar masses (by degeneracy pressure) while the orbital characteristics of stars in the proximity of the proposed Milky Way SMBH indicate a compact object with a total mass of >4 million Solar masses. It seems problematic to me that any even hypothetical form of exotic matter must have some finite constraint limiting its degeneracy pressure and resulting maximum density, preventing perhaps even the existence of any physical object of millions of Solar masses. I think you may address this in your essay, but I'm afraid I can't adequately comprehend.
I was intrigued by you brief mention of a recent proposal that "the true BHs should have M = 0," as this may relate to some of my thinking. Unfortunately I was unable to identify much less access the document. Actually, my thinking has been not that BHs effectively contain no mass but that perhaps BHs contain only potential mass-energy - separated from its co-configuration with dimensional matter.
My reasoning is that the extreme conditions imposed in particle accelerator experiments disintegrate massive particles, in effect dispersing not only their dimensional material but also whatever physically imparts the property of mass to particles. Gravitational theory describes its effect fundamentally as being proportionate to localized mass. If, in the extreme conditions of acceleration and density imposed upon matter accreted by a BH, with particle collisions or not, matter may be disintegrated, dissipating even its potential mass-energy. Whether manifested as an energy field or some short-lived exotic particles, perhaps the material residue is (however) ejected through the polar jets as observed while much if not all of the original material's potential mass-energy is retained within the BH, perhaps directly imparted as a gravitational field (curved spacetime). In this way, the internal gravitational effects may be physically directed to a single focal point - presenting the effect of a massive gravitational singularity.
Of course these are merely very loose speculations, but they might could explain the extremely energetic, relativistic expulsion of low mass particles and address the issue of potentially unphysical, exceedingly 'dense' masses. This idea, to me at least, does seem to be reasonably based on observed quantum effects under extreme conditions. In that sense this scenario might even provide a closer link between quantum theory and general relativity.
I'd very much appreciate and consideration you may be able to give to these ideas. I'm sorry to take up so much of your time with what may just be naive nonsense.
Sincerely, Jim
