What a computer can run · the computing totals, run backwards
Pick a computer and this page lists the richest world it can run. For every extent, it shows the finest matter floor the computer can handle. The other dials stay at the Sandbox baseline: everyone alive is a fully computed mind at functional detail, and time runs forward from 1900. Every cell opens in the Sandbox with that setup.
1021 FLOPS · every computer on Earth rough
The largest world it can run is one room, down to tissue. Atom by atom, it runs nothing, not even one brain.
- Observable universecan’t run at any floor
- Milky Waycan’t run at any floor
- Solar systemcan’t run at any floor
- Earthcan’t run at any floor
- One roomdown to tissue · 1018 FLOPS
- One braindown to cell · 1.1 × 1018 FLOPS
Each cell is the computing that world needs. Filled cells are ones this computer can run. The finest one it can run on each row is outlined.
| Extent | Painted set | Organ | Tissue | Cell | Organelle | Protein | Molecule | Atom | Particle | Quark | Quantum, mean field | Quantum, fully entangled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One brain | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 24 | 34 | 43 | 44 | 47 | 54 | 55 | ∞ |
| One room | 18 | 18 | 18 | 21 | 28 | 38 | 46 | 47 | 51 | 58 | 59 | ∞ |
| Earth | 28 | 29 | 32 | 42 | 49 | 59 | 67 | 68 | 72 | 79 | 80 | ∞ |
| Solar system | 28 | 35 | 38 | 47 | 54 | 64 | 74 | 75 | 77 | 85 | 85 | ∞ |
| Milky Way | 34 | 45 | 49 | 58 | 65 | 75 | 85 | 86 | 88 | 95 | 96 | ∞ |
| Observable universe | 45 | 57 | 61 | 70 | 77 | 87 | 97 | 98 | 100 | 108 | 108 | ∞ |
Numbers are powers of ten: 68 means 1068 FLOPS. At molecule and finer floors the brains are already computed as matter, so minds add nothing.
Human brains with no world around them. This is how many the computer can run in real time, at each level of detail.
| Scripted | 1015 |
|---|---|
| Functional | 1,000 |
| Biophysical | not one |
| Molecular | not one |
| Quantum | not one |
For scale, about 8.2 billion people are alive.