is really natural is perhaps debatable (it relies in fact on a number of assumptions and correspondences as e.g. peculiar intersections of various classes of p-branes). In a sense, it is rather a correspondence between BH-behavior and the configurational entropy of certain string states. To mention some representative papers, [@S1],[@S2],[@S3],[@S4],[@S5],[@S6]. In LQG, on the other hand, it is assumed from the outset (at least as far as we can see) that the corresponding DoF are sitting at the BH-horizon. Therefore the observed area dependence of BH-entropy is perhaps not so surprising (cf. e.g. [@L1],[@L2]).

In the enumeration of the most promising candidates for a theory of quantum gravity one approach is usually left out which, we nevertheless think, has a certain potential. One may, for example, tentatively divide quantum gravity candidates into roughly three groups, the relativisation of quantum theory (with e.g. LQG and causal set theory as members), the quantisation of general relativity (string theory being a prominent candidate) or third, theories which underlie both general relativity [and]{} quantum theory but are in fact more fundamental and structurally different from both and contain these two pillars of modern physics as derived and perhaps merely effective sub-theories, living on coarser 