--- title: "The Afterlife · a universe that takes 10¹⁸ FLOPS · Simulation Hypothesis" url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds/afterlife description: "A world with no suffering, computed only when someone’s there. A painted world that exists only where the person in it is paying attention." license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)" --- [Scenarios](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds)9/9 # The Afterlife · A world with no suffering, computed only when someone’s there. Open in the sandbox ▸ A painted world that exists only where the person in it is paying attention. It repeats in a cycle and has no suffering. It fits on one of today’s largest supercomputers. Required computing power rough 10^18 FLOPS Our computers could run this today. [The countdown ▸](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/countdown) About one of today’s largest supercomputers. Computer sizemeasured the biggest supercomputer Exascale class. It fills a building. Feasibility Possible at national scale Supercomputer territory: large, but it exists. Universe-computerstextbook 1.2 × 10^-86 One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound. Power draw, Landauer floortextbook 0.0029 W The thermodynamic minimum for flipping bits at room temperature. The best real hardware uses about five billion times more energy than that. At the thermodynamic minimum, a wall socket would do. On every computer on Earthrough faster than real time How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, \~10^21 FLOPS. Real time, on computers we have today. World actually computedwild guess 1.7 × 10^-16% 1.7 × 10^-16% of the mass is watched by one observer. The observation dial sets how much of the remainder is computed at the full floor. ## Questions this scenario asks * Would you go in, knowing what it is? * If you remove suffering, do you remove meaning too? * Can happiness be real with nothing at stake? * Is it okay to keep the people inside from knowing? “Worked out a world that’s only drawn in where one mind looks: 10^18 FLOPS.” ## Report card Instance report ONE MIND, DRAWN-IN SURROUNDINGS Settings Scale Earth Matter floor Painted set Lobby Single player Inner lives 8.2 billion · functional Computed 1.7 × 10^-16% Time Cyclic, live from 2026 Slot A player Computing needed 10^18 FLOPS Computer size the biggest supercomputer Universe-computers 1.2 × 10^-86 Feasibility Possible at national scale Judged, not measured The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total. Suffering Off Free will Feels free Utilitarian leans for Deontological divided Virtue ethics leans against Existentialist leans against “Worked out a world that’s only drawn in where one mind looks: 10^18 FLOPS.” Two of these are rough and three are wild guesses, and each is tagged that way. Change any one dial and you get a different universe. Matter computingrough 10^13 FLOPS Only surfaces are computed, and only where someone is looking. Anything unobserved is just a stored value. Mind computingrough 10^18 FLOPS Sandberg & Bostrom 2008, level 4 One fully computed functional mind and 8.2 billion scripted ones. Inner liveswild guess 8.2 billion 1 real mind, 8.2 billion scripted, 4.5 × 10^20 animals as scenery. Operations so farrough 3.2 × 10^25 less than a year on the clock, at 10^18 per second. History that is only storedrough 100% Computing begins in 2026\. 8.2 billion humans are present at the start, with preinstalled memories. [◂ Baseline](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds/custom)Open in the sandbox ▸ [The Matrix ▸](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds/sleepers)