Scenarios5/9
Local Universe · The Milky Way at atomic resolution, from the Big Bang.
Everything we could plausibly reach, computed atom by atom from the starting state. Past the edge of the galaxy nothing is computed. It’s kept only as a probability distribution.
Required computing power rough
7.0 × 1085 FLOPS
Never on one star’s power with ordinary logic, even at the thermodynamic floor. The countdown ▸
That’s 8.6 × 10-19 of one universe-computer, which is the whole observable universe running at its physical limit.
Computer sizetextbook
65,000 × a Sun-mass ultimate computer
A star turned into a computer.
At Lloyd’s bound this takes 65,000 Suns of matter, all of it computing.
Feasibility
Beyond an Earth-mass computer
More than a planet’s worth of matter could compute at the physical limit.
Universe-computerstextbook
8.6 × 10-19
One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound.
Power draw, Landauer floortextbook
5.2 × 1038 Suns
The thermodynamic minimum for flipping bits at room temperature. The best real hardware uses about five billion times more energy than that.
5.2 × 1038 Suns of power at the Landauer floor, assuming perfect chips. The best real chips use about five billion times more energy than that.
On every computer on Earthrough
2.2 × 1057 years per second
How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, ~1021 FLOPS.
1.6 × 1047 ages of the universe, on all of Earth’s computing, for every simulated second.
World actually computedwild guess
100%
6.9 × 10-17% of the mass is watched by 8.3 × 1015 observers. The observation dial sets how much of the remainder is computed at the full floor.
- Why does the simulation stop at the edge of the galaxy?
- What does running something this big say about whoever runs it?
- Are we important enough for atomic detail?
- Is what we can’t observe a different kind of thing, or just not drawn in?
“Worked out galaxy at atom resolution: 7.0 × 10^85 FLOPS, or 65,000 × a Sun-mass ultimate computer.”
Instance report
ONE SIMULATED WORLD
ONE SIMULATED WORLD
Settings
ScaleMilky Way
Matter floorAtom
LobbyMultiplayer
Inner lives8.3 × 10^15 · functional
Computed100%
TimeLinear, live from 1.4 × 10^10 yrs ago
Computing needed
7.0 × 1085 FLOPS
Computer size65,000 × a Sun-mass ultimate computer
Universe-computers8.6 × 10-19
FeasibilityBeyond an Earth-mass computer
Judged, not measured
The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total.
SufferingAs found
Free willDice
Utilitarianleans for
Deontologicalleans for
Virtue ethicsleans for
Existentialistdivided
“Worked out galaxy at atom resolution: 7.0 × 10^85 FLOPS, or 65,000 × a Sun-mass ultimate computer.”
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
7.0 × 1085 FLOPS
7.0 × 1067 atom-sized units across galaxy, each updated every 1 fs.
Mind computingrough
rides along free
At the atom floor, brains are already computed as matter. On their own they’d take 8.2 × 1033.
At this matter floor the brains are already computed as matter, so minds add nothing to the total.
Inner liveswild guess
8.3 × 1015
8.3 × 1015 real minds. 4.5 × 1026 organisms left as scenery.
Operations so farrough
3.0 × 10103
13.8 billion years on the clock, at 7.0 × 1085 per second.
History that is only storedrough
0%
Computing begins 13.8 billion years ago. No humans are present at the start.