Is humanity living in a simulation? A physicist was studying the coronavirus and came across a strange nuance

Melvin Vopson, a researcher studying mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, claims to have found evidence of a new law of physics called the "second law of infodynamics." According to him, this may indicate that we live in a simulated universe.

In addition, the study has every chance of refuting the evolutionary theory of human development. But at the same time, Vopson notes that he does not yet have real evidence of such an extraordinary theory, IFLScience reports.

What is information entropy and what does covid have to do with it?

In his research paper, Vopson examined the mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in terms of information entropy (a term different from ordinary entropy, a physical quantity that characterizes energy dissipation).

"Physical entropy is a measure of all possible microstates compatible with a macrostate. These are microstates that do not carry information. If we assume that N information states can be created within one physical system (for example, by writing digital bits into it), then the result is the formation of N additional information microstates superimposed on existing physical microstates. These additional microstates are carriers of information, and the additional entropy associated with them is called the entropy of information," Vopson explains in the article.

While entropy tends to increase over time, information entropy, according to Vopson, decreases. This can be illustrated by the heat death of the Universe, i.e. the state of thermal equilibrium. At this point, the conventional entropy reaches its maximum value, but not the informational one.

During the heat death (or just before it), the range of temperatures and possible states in any region of the Universe is very small. This means that fewer events will occur - i.e., lower information entropy.

This information is quite interesting in terms of the way we describe the universe. But is it a sensation?

According to Vopson, it's a physical law that can govern everything from genetics to the evolution of the universe. The scientist emphasized that the second law of infodynamics, according to his research, is "a cosmological necessity. It is universally applicable with enormous scientific implications."

"We know that the Universe is expanding without losing or gaining heat, which requires that the total entropy of the Universe be constant. However, we also know from thermodynamics that entropy is always increasing. This suggests that there must be another entropy, the information entropy, to balance this increase," Vopson wrote in The Conversation.

A way to predict mutations

Vopson looked at the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which mutated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus is regularly worked with to track how it changes in order to develop new vaccines. The scientist studied RNA, not DNA, and found that the information entropy decreases over time.

"The best example of something that undergoes a series of mutations in a short period of time is a virus. The pandemic gave us the perfect sample to test because SARS-CoV-2 has mutated into so many variants, and the data we've obtained is incredible," Vopson explained in a press release.

"The COVID data confirms the second law of infodynamics, and the research opens up unlimited possibilities. Imagine looking at a particular gene and deciding whether a mutation will be beneficial before it happens. This could be a revolutionary technology that can be used in genetic therapy, the pharmaceutical industry, evolutionary biology, and pandemic research," the scientist continues.

According to Vopson, this shows that mutations are not random. They obey a law that states that information entropy should remain constant or decrease over time.

"This would be an amazing discovery if it were confirmed, and it would overturn our understanding of how evolution works," Vopson says.

The scientist points to a similar experiment in 1972, in which an unexpected decrease in the genome of a virus was observed over 74 generations under ideal conditions, which, in his opinion, is consistent with his second law of infodynamics.

"The global consensus is that mutations occur by chance, and then natural selection dictates whether a mutation is beneficial or harmful to an organism. But what if there's a hidden process at work, and it's what drives these mutations? Whenever we see something unexplainable, we describe it as 'random', 'chaotic' or 'paranormal', but that's just our inability to explain it," he says.

"If we start looking at genetic mutations from a deterministic point of view, we can use this new law of physics to predict mutations - or their probability - before they happen," the scientist continues.

Vopson believes that this law may also explain why symmetry is so common in the universe.

"High symmetry corresponds to a state with low information entropy, which is exactly what the second law of infodynamics requires. This observation, therefore, explains why symmetry dominates the Universe," Vopson writes in his article.

Simulation or not?

The bold statements (with the requirement for further evidence) do not end there.

"Since the second law of infodynamics is a cosmological necessity and seems to hold true everywhere, we can conclude that the entire universe is a simulated construct or a giant computer," Vopson adds.

"A super-complex universe like ours, if it were a simulation, would need built-in data optimization and compression to reduce the computing power and storage requirements to run the simulation. This is exactly what we observe all around us, including in digital data, biological systems, mathematical symmetries, and the entire universe," the scientist continues.

This does not mean that the confirmation of the "second law of infodynamics" will prove that we are living in a simulation. There are other quantum mechanical effects that prove that we are not living in a simulation.

Does information have mass?

If infodynamics is correct, information should have mass and interact with everything else. According to a study conducted in 2012, the irreversible erasure of information can dissipate heat. For Vopson, this means that energy must be stored as mass before erasure, making information a separate state of matter equivalent to mass and energy.

"It may not be too difficult to prove or disprove that information has mass experimentally. One simple experiment could be to measure the mass of a hard disk before and after irreversible erasure of information. Unfortunately, this is currently beyond our capabilities, given the small magnitude of the expected change in mass," Vopson said.

But, according to the scientist, if this theory is correct, elementary particles can probably carry information about themselves. One of the proposed experiments is to direct particles and antiparticles at each other at high speeds.

"The experiment involves erasing the information contained inside elementary particles, allowing them and their antiparticles (all particles have 'anti' versions of themselves that are identical but have the opposite charge) to annihilate in a flash of energy - emitting 'photons' or light particles," Vopson added.

The scientist claims to have predicted the exact range of expected frequencies of the resulting photons based on information physics.

Although this idea is outside the mainstream, the experiment is relatively cheap - $180,000 (absolutely nothing for supporters of the simulation theory, such as Elon Musk), and it can be verified using modern technology.

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