Non-unitary HD gravity classically equivalent to Einstein gravity

Runaway solutions can be avoided in fourth order gravity by a doubling of the matter operator algebra with a symmetry constraint with respect to the exchange of observable and hidden degrees of freedom together with the change in sign of the ghost and the dilaton fields. The theory is classically equivalent to Einstein gravity, while its non-unitary Newtonian limit is compatible with the wavelike properties of microscopic particles and the classical behavior of macroscopic bodies, as well as with a trans-Planckian regularization of collapse singularities. A unified reading of ordinary and black hole entropy emerges as entanglement entropy with hidden degrees of freedom.