--- title: "The Matrix · a universe that takes 8.2 × 10³¹ FLOPS · Simulation Hypothesis" url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds/sleepers description: "Present-day Earth with billions of fully computed minds, drawn in only where someone is looking." license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)" --- [Scenarios](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds)1/9 # The Matrix · Present-day Earth with billions of fully computed minds, drawn in only where someone is looking. Open in the sandbox ▸ The world of the film The Matrix, with one change: the sleepers’ minds are computed too, not real brains in pods. A present-day Earth that’s drawn in consistently wherever anyone looks. Billions of people live in it without knowing it’s a simulation, and a few suspect it. Suffering is higher than what we see, and it helps keep things stable. Choices are fixed by earlier causes, but they feel free. Required computing power rough 8.2 × 10^31 FLOPS Our computers could run this between 2097 and 2127, if steady growth runs a fifth faster or slower (2109 at the central rate). [The countdown ▸](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/countdown) More than every computer on Earth put together, by a factor of about 10^11. Computer sizerough 10¹¹ × every computer on Earth Servers, personal computers, phones and consoles added together. Feasibility Beyond all existing hardware More than every computer on Earth combined. Universe-computerstextbook 10^-72 One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound. Power draw, Landauer floortextbook 240 GW The thermodynamic minimum for flipping bits at room temperature. The best real hardware uses about five billion times more energy than that. A fraction of a national power grid, at the thermodynamic minimum for erasing bits. On every computer on Earthrough 2,598 years per second How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, \~10^21 FLOPS. 2,598 years of all Earth’s computing for every simulated second. World actually computedwild guess 0.071637% 1.4 × 10^-6% of the mass is watched by 8.2 billion observers. The observation dial sets how much of the remainder is computed at the full floor. ## Questions this scenario asks * If you can’t tell the difference, does it matter? * Does knowing you’re simulated change what you owe anyone? * Is suffering justified if it keeps the illusion stable? * Should the ones who suspect tell everyone else, or let them be? “Worked out a world with more suffering than ours: 8.2 × 10^31 FLOPS. Suffering isn’t what takes the computing.” ## Report card Instance report PAINTED SURFACES, FULL MINDS Settings Scale Earth Matter floor Painted set Lobby Real and scripted minds Inner lives 8.2 billion · biophysical Computed 0.071637% Time Linear, live from 1996 Slot A scripted character that detects the seams Computing needed 8.2 × 10^31 FLOPS Computer size 10¹¹ × every computer on Earth Universe-computers 10^-72 Feasibility Beyond all existing hardware Judged, not measured The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total. Suffering Raised Free will Feels free Utilitarian leans against Deontological leans against Virtue ethics leans against Existentialist leans against “Worked out a world with more suffering than ours: 8.2 × 10^31 FLOPS. Suffering isn’t what takes the computing.” 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 8.2 × 10^22 FLOPS Only surfaces are computed, and only where someone is looking. Anything unobserved is just a stored value. Mind computingrough 8.2 × 10^31 FLOPS Sandberg & Bostrom 2008, level 5 8.2 billion minds, each computed as a biophysical model. Next to the matter, they’re a small part of the total. Inner liveswild guess 8.2 billion 8.2 billion real minds. 4.5 × 10^20 organisms left as scenery. Operations so farrough 7.8 × 10^40 30 years on the clock, at 8.2 × 10^31 per second. History that is only storedrough 99.9999998% Computing begins in 1996\. 5.77 billion humans are present at the start, with preinstalled memories. [◂ The Afterlife](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds/afterlife)Open in the sandbox ▸ [Brain in a Vat ▸](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/builds/vat)