The Opacity Requirement: Thermodynamic Necessity of Individuality in Processing-Driven Cosmologies (MetaTime Spin-Off)

MetaTime interprets late-time cosmic acceleration as the energetic footprint of instantiation: a conversion of Latency ($\rho_L$) into Execution ($\rho_E$) mediated by an interaction term $Q$. Increasing the coupling efficiency $\beta$ between nodes typically enhances collective processing. However, this paper resolves a paradox: in the limit where $\beta \to \infty$ (perfect coupling or total transparency), statistical differentiation between nodes vanishes, useful information currents collapse, and irreversible record production halts—an informational analogue of thermal death. We replace circuit metaphors with non-equilibrium statistical physics: information currents are driven by relative-entropy gradients (Kullback-Leibler divergence), and "opacity" is formalized as a non-zero relaxation time $\tau$ that induces hysteresis and non-Markovian memory. Using Landauer's principle, we show that irreversible record creation requires dissipation, dissipation requires affinities (gradients), and consensus equilibrium erases those affinities. We state an Optimal Fusion Theorem: there exists a critical coupling $\beta_{critical}$ maximizing entropy production and thus instantiation throughput; beyond it, homogenization forces the system into a processing stall. The "Opacity Requirement" concludes that individuality is not a moral preference but a thermodynamic stability condition for processing-driven cosmologies.