The idea that reality might be a kind of cosmic software has moved from late night dorm debates into serious physics journals, and now dueling teams of researchers are claiming they finally have the math on their side. One camp argues that new laws of information and gravity show the universe behaves like a vast computational system, while another insists logic itself rules out any conceivable simulator. Caught between these bold claims of “proof,” I see a deeper story about how far science can really go in testing whether we live in a simulation.
Instead of a single decisive experiment, what is emerging is a clash of frameworks: information theorists who treat bits as the building blocks of nature, and mathematical physicists who say those same tools make a simulated cosmos impossible. The result is not a tidy answer to whether we are digital beings, but a revealing snapshot of how modern physics is trying to turn a philosophical puzzle into a testable question.
How the simulation hypothesis became a physics problem
For decades, the simulation hypothesis was mostly a thought experiment, a way for philosophers to probe how we know anything about the external world. That changed when high profile technologists and scientists began treating it as a live possibility, arguing that if advanced civilizations can run countless detailed simulations, then statistically we are more likely to be simulated than “base” reality. This probabilistic argument set the stage for researchers to ask whether the structure of physical law itself carries the fingerprints of a computational origin.
Once the question shifted from pure philosophy to physics, the focus moved to measurable patterns: symmetries, conservation laws, and the way information behaves in extreme conditions. Some scientists now claim they have the evidence that we live in a simulation, a position described in detail in a report that notes how Hearst Magazines and Yahoo have amplified arguments that many philosophers and scientists now take seriously. In parallel, online communities dissect snippets from these papers, including one widely shared discussion titled Just saw this article: “A Scientist Says He Has the Evidence That We Live in a Simulation”, which highlights how specific symmetries and the entire universe might be encoded.
The bold new “law” that treats information as a physical substance
The most aggressive recent push in favor of a simulated universe comes from work that treats information not as an abstract bookkeeping tool, but as a physical quantity with its own dynamics. In this view, bits behave somewhat like energy, subject to constraints that can be written as laws of physics. One proposal introduces what is called the second law of infodynamics, which states that the information content associated with any event or process tends to decrease, in contrast to the familiar second law of thermodynamics where entropy increases.
This second law of infodynamics is presented as a new principle that could operate alongside traditional thermodynamics, with the claim that it minimizes information content while still preserving the structure of events, symmetries, and the entire universe. A detailed explanation from a University of Portsmouth researcher describes how the law is based on the second law of thermodynamics yet extends it into the information domain, suggesting far reaching implications across various scientific disciplines, as outlined in a report asking whether a new law of physics could support the idea we are living in a computer simulation. A separate discussion of the same work on a technology forum notes that the second law of infodynamics essentially minimizes the information content associated with any event or process in the universe, while still preserving events, symmetries, and the entire universe, a claim summarized in a thread titled University of Portsmouth physicist claims to have proof.
Melvin Vopson and the “infodynamic” universe
At the center of this information focused approach is British physicist Melvin Vopson, who argues that the universe is best understood as an information processing system. In his recent research, he uses information theory to propose a new law of physics, the second law of infodynamics, and then asks what kind of cosmos would naturally emerge from such a rule. If information content tends to decrease, he suggests, then the universe would evolve toward simpler, more compressed descriptions, much like a data compression algorithm cleaning up redundant code.
Vopson’s work, published in AIP Advances, is presented as direct support for the simulated universe theory, with the claim that the behavior of information in nature appears to mirror what one would expect in a computational system. In a first person account, he explains that his research, published in AIP Advances, appears to support the simulated universe theory by showing that information behaves as if the universe were a computational system. A social media summary of the same paper notes that it was Published in AIP Advances and introduces the second law of infodynamics as a key feature of a computational universe, explicitly framing our cosmos as a vast computer simulation.
When gravity starts to look like a software feature
Vopson has not stopped at information theory. He has also turned to gravity, arguing that the way mass attracts mass might itself be a side effect of how information is organized. In this picture, gravity is not just a pull between objects, but something that happens when the universe is trying to reduce information entropy, nudging matter into configurations that compress the data needed to describe them. That is a radical shift from the standard view of gravity as curvature of spacetime, and it is explicitly framed as a new way to think about the force.
According to a detailed summary from the University of Portsmouth, this approach suggests gravity could be a clue that we are living in a simulated universe, because it behaves like a mechanism that optimizes information storage, even down to the level of every particle inside a single cell, a claim laid out in a report where a scientist suggests gravity further supports the theory we are living in a simulated universe. A separate analysis notes that British physicist Melvin Vopson proposes that gravity reduces information entropy, hinting that the universe may function like a computational system where information is organized in a specific way, as described in a report on how British physicist Melvin Vopson links gravity, information entropy, and a simulated universe.
From fringe idea to viral “proof”
Once framed in terms of new laws and testable predictions, the simulation hypothesis has found a ready audience far beyond academic journals. Popular science coverage has highlighted the claim that our universe likely functions like a computer simulation, often focusing on the intuitive appeal of comparing reality to familiar technologies like video games and virtual reality headsets. Clips explaining these ideas circulate widely, turning technical concepts like information entropy into shareable soundbites about living inside a cosmic Matrix. One widely viewed video asserts that our universe likely functions like a computer simulation according to new research published by physicist Melvin Vopson, emphasizing that the research methods explicitly involve simulation and information theory, as summarized in a social media post stating that our universe likely functions like a computer simulation. Another explainer notes that the second law of infodynamics could be observed in real systems, with the hope that more research will reveal laws of infodynamics in action, a sentiment captured in a feature where the author writes, “My hope is that this work will stimulate more research and very smart scientists will come up with new ways to prove or disprove the laws of infodynamics in action,” as reported in a piece on a new law of physics that could mean we really live in a simulation.
The counterstrike: mathematicians say a simulation is impossible
While Vopson and others argue that information based laws point toward a computational universe, a separate group of physicists has reached the opposite conclusion using a very different toolkit. Drawing on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and related results in mathematical logic, they argue that any computer powerful enough to simulate an entire universe with self aware observers would run into fundamental limits. In their view, the same mathematical principles that constrain formal systems also constrain what any simulator could compute, no matter how advanced the hardware. Researchers at the University of British Columbia Okanagan have gone so far as to claim they have mathematically proven the universe is not a simulation, stating that there is a mathematical limit that no computer could ever replicate, a result described in detail in a report titled Physicists Have Mathematically Proven the Universe Is Not a Simulation. A related summary explains that new research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated, using Gödel’s incompleteness theorems to argue that no simulation of the universe could ever reproduce all of its properties, as outlined in a report on how New research from UBC Okanagan proves the universe is not a simulation.
Inside the “no simulation” math
The core of the anti simulation argument is that any attempt to encode a universe like ours inside a computer would require the simulator to solve problems that are provably unsolvable within any consistent mathematical system. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems show that in any sufficiently powerful formal system, there are true statements that cannot be proven within that system. The UBC Okanagan team applies this logic to physical law, arguing that a complete simulation would need to capture not only known equations, but also all the undecidable truths that arise from them, which no algorithm can do.
In a detailed breakdown, the researchers state that the same mathematical principles that limit formal systems also limit any hypothetical simulation, leading them to conclude that the universe cannot be a simulation because no computer could ever reproduce all of its properties, as described in an analysis where scientists say they have proof the universe is not a simulation and that the math makes it impossible. Another report notes that scientists at the University of British Columbia Okanagan say they have found a mathematical limit that shuts down the simulation hypothesis, emphasizing that it is logic itself that blocks any such simulation, as summarized in a piece explaining how Scientists at the University of British Columbia Okanagan prove the universe cannot be a simulation.
Two incompatible “proofs,” one unsettled question
On one side, I see Melvin Vopson and his supporters pointing to information compression, entropy reduction, and gravity as evidence that the universe behaves like a computational system, perhaps even a deliberately designed one. On the other, the UBC Okanagan team insists that the very mathematics used to build simulations shows that no such system could ever capture the full richness of our cosmos. Both camps use the language of proof, yet they are really offering different kinds of arguments: one inductive and pattern based, the other deductive and rooted in logical limits.
That tension is visible even in how the claims are framed. Vopson’s work is often described as indicating that our universe might be a simulation, with careful caveats that more research is needed, as in a social media post that states his research introduces the second law of infodynamics as a principle of a computational universe. By contrast, the UBC Okanagan work is presented as a definitive shutdown of the simulation hypothesis, with headlines declaring that physicists have mathematically proven the universe is not a simulation and that logic itself rules it out, as in the report that Physicists Have Mathematically Proven the universe is not a simulation. The result is less a settled verdict than a vivid illustration of how the same tools of logic and information can be marshaled to opposite ends.
What “proof” really means when reality is the question
When I look across these arguments, what stands out is how elastic the word “proof” becomes once we leave the controlled environment of a laboratory and start talking about the nature of reality itself. In mathematics, proof has a precise meaning: a chain of logical steps from axioms to conclusion. The UBC Okanagan team is closest to that standard, but their conclusion still depends on assumptions about what a simulator would need to do and how physical law maps onto formal systems. Change those assumptions, and the impossibility proof may no longer apply.
On the simulation friendly side, the evidence is more circumstantial. The second law of infodynamics, the behavior of gravity as a potential information optimizer, and the apparent compressibility of physical laws are all intriguing, but they do not uniquely point to a designed simulation. They are consistent with a computational universe, yet they are also compatible with a non simulated cosmos where information happens to obey similar rules. Even the researchers advancing these ideas acknowledge that their work is meant to stimulate more research and inspire very smart scientists to find new ways to test the laws of infodynamics in action, as one author explicitly states in the feature on a new law of physics. For now, the competing claims of proof tell us less about whether we are simulated, and more about how far physics is willing to stretch to confront a question that once belonged solely to philosophy.
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