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When studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes covid-19, a physicist came to an unusual conclusion — that our universe is a huge simulation. Melvin Vopson based the idea on an unproven discovery that he calls the “Second Law of Infodynamics.” Does it seem really crazy? Calm down, let’s try to explain.
According to Vopson, everything is based on Information Theory, the work of mathematician Claude Shannon. It is about quantifying, storing and communicating information, as the name implies, and how everything — from nature to computers to electrons — is based on data.
Entropy and infodynamics
To explain the second law of infodynamics, it is necessary to understand entropy. This concept represents the fact that, in an isolated system like ours, everything tends to disorder, balancing the elements. A warm cup of coffee on a table, for example, loses heat until it reaches room temperature, balancing the system. The system’s entropy reaches its maximum value, and its energy reaches its minimum value.
According to the second law of infodynamics, then, the amount of information expressed by an event remains constant or decreases over time, reaching its minimum value when the system balances. It is something diametrically opposed to the second law of thermodynamics.
Let’s go back to the coffee example: entropy increases when heat spontaneously flows from the hot liquid to the cold environment. When this occurs, the spread of probabilities of locating a molecule in the liquid decreases, as the spread of available energy decreases when thermal equilibrium is reached.
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Information entropy decreases, in other words, while “standard,” or physical, entropy increases. According to science, the universe is constantly expanding, without loss or gain of heat (nothing is created, nothing is lost, remember?), which implies that the total entropy of the universe is constant.
We know, however, from thermodynamics, that entropy is always increasing in closed systems. Vopson believes that, because of this, another entropy — information entropy — must be balancing this increase. Information entropy would then be a cosmological necessity. This would have several implications for science, if proven.
Is the universe a simulation?
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But how, then, does this theory lead to the conclusion that our universe is a simulation? Well, the main consequence of the second law of infodynamics, according to Vopson, is the minimization of the information contained in any event or process in the universe. This means that there is an optimization of information — in other words, it is the most effective data compression possible.
As the law would be a cosmological necessity, and appears to be applied everywhere equally, this means that the universe would be constructed in the same way as a large computer. If the universe were a simulation, there would certainly be a data optimization and compression system to reduce the computational power needed for this, as well as the amount of storage.
Stretching this reasoning a little, it would be possible to think that, as biological systems seek to optimize energy use as much as possible, they would be obeying the energy savings of information entropy. Why is symmetry so present in nature? Simple — because it needs less information to be generated than asymmetry, resulting in the lowest possible informational entropy.
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Entropy and coronavirus
Vopson stated that he found one of the proofs when studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus, whose mutations were closely observed during the covid-19 pandemic. Studying all the RNA and DNA changes that the virus presented over time, the scientist noticed that information entropy actually decreased in the pathogen’s genome.
For the physicist, this means that the genetic mutations suffered by living beings and viruses are not random, but would obey the second law of infodynamics, maintaining or decreasing their information entropy.
If this could be used to predict mutations before they occur, the implications for evolutionary biology, pandemic studies, gene therapy and the pharmaceutical industry would be enormous and extremely beneficial.
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Hypothesis or truth?
While the whole theory is quite interesting, it needs proof—extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof. So, so far, everything is just a hypothesis. If Vopson is right, raw information must have mass, so that it can interact with other elements in the universe.
To show this, it would be enough to measure the mass of a hard drive before and after its data is permanently erased. The problem is that, as the amount of mass would be very small, there is still no way to measure it.
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Another possibility would be to bombard particles with antiparticles (their opposite, but with an opposite charge, something that all particles have) so that they eliminate each other and emit photons.
Vopson claims to have calculated the entire range of frequencies that can be expected from these photons based on information physics. Until this is done, everything remains in the theoretical field, without much weight for science — or without much mass, in this case.
Source: AIP Advances, The Conversation, EurekAlert!
