Inconsistencies of the New No-Boundary Proposal
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In previous works, we have demonstrated that the path integral for real, Lorentzian four-geometries in Einstein gravity yields sensible results in well-understood physical situations, but leads to uncontrolled fluctuations when the “no boundary” condition proposed by Hartle and Hawking is imposed. In order to circumvent our result, new definitions for the gravitational path integral have been sought, involving specific choices for a class of complex four-geometries to be included. In their latest proposal, Diaz Dorronsoro et al. advocate for integrating the lapse over a complex circular contour enclosing the origin. In this note, we show that, like their earlier proposal, this leads to mathematical and physical inconsistencies and thus cannot be regarded as a basis for quantum cosmology. We also comment on Vilenkin and Yamada’s recent modification of the “tunneling" proposal, made in order to avoid the same problems. We show that it leads to the breakdown of perturbation theory in a strong coupling regime.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.011 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.010 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".