Scenarios7/9
Full Quantum · The observable universe as one wavefunction. The upper limit.
The observable universe as a single wavefunction, with every mind a quantum process. Perfect detail, and more than any possible computer could run.
Even the exponent needs an exponent. No physical computer comes anywhere near this scale.
Computer sizerough
one universe-computer
Every kilogram of ordinary matter in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound. That’s the ceiling for ordinary matter. Counting dark matter would raise it about sixfold, but we couldn’t actually use any of it.
Nothing bigger is physically possible.
Feasibility
Too large to write as a number
The exponent itself needs an exponent.
Universe-computerstextbook
101079.7
One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound.
Power draw, Landauer floortextbook
not a number
The thermodynamic minimum for flipping bits at room temperature. The best real hardware uses about five billion times more energy than that.
The power needed can’t be written as a physical quantity.
On every computer on Earthrough
unbounded
How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, ~1021 FLOPS.
No amount of time is enough.
World actually computedwild guess
100%
1.3 × 10-8% of the mass is watched by 2.0 × 1036 observers. The observation dial sets how much of the remainder is computed at the full floor.
- Does perfect detail even make sense as a goal?
- Would quantum consciousness change what experience means?
- Does computing suffering in perfect detail make the moral debt bigger?
- What can something impossible tell us about the things that are possible?
“Worked out a simulation whose total has an exponent on its exponent: 10^(10^79.7) FLOPS.”
Instance report
BEYOND ANY COMPUTER
BEYOND ANY COMPUTER
Settings
ScaleObservable universe
Matter floorQuantum, fully entangled
LobbyMultiplayer
Inner lives9.0 × 10^79 · quantum
Computed100%
TimeLinear, live from 1.4 × 10^10 yrs ago
Computing needed
101079.7 FLOPS
Computer sizeone universe-computer
Universe-computers101079.7
FeasibilityToo large to write as a number
Judged, not measured
The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total.
SufferingAs found
Free willGenuinely free
Utilitariandivided
Deontologicalleans for
Virtue ethicsleans for
Existentialistleans for
“Worked out a simulation whose total has an exponent on its exponent: 10^(10^79.7) 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
101079.7 FLOPS
Every particle is held in one shared quantum state. That state grows exponentially with the number of particles.
Mind computingwild guess
rides along free
At the quantum, fully entangled floor, brains are already computed as matter. On their own they’d take 1.4 × 1080.
At this matter floor the brains are already computed as matter, so minds add nothing to the total.
Inner liveswild guess
9.0 × 1079
9.0 × 1079 real minds. 8.8 × 1037 organisms left as scenery.
Operations so farrough
101079.7
13.8 billion years on the clock, at 101079.7 per second.
History that is only storedrough
0%
Computing begins 13.8 billion years ago. No humans are present at the start.