---
title: "Whole-brain emulation · Library · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/whole-brain-emulation
description: "Whole-brain emulation is the proposal to simulate one particular brain in enough detail to reproduce its behaviour."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

## Physics & computation

# Whole-brain emulation

Definition

Whole-brain emulation is the proposal to simulate one particular brain in enough detail to reproduce its behaviour. Sandberg and Bostrom (2008) estimated the computing needed at anywhere from 10^15 FLOPS for population models to 10^43 for molecular detail.

On this site

The Mind model dial uses the roadmap’s levels: functional, biophysical and molecular. The quantum level is a placeholder with no empirical basis.

Role in the model

The Mind model dial comes from the whole-brain-emulation roadmap: functional, biophysical and molecular levels, each with a published computing figure per brain. It’s the only part of the model taken from a document and not from a physical constant. The Method page says so.

Related

[Computationalism](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/computationalism)[Substrate independence](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/substrate-independence)[Consciousness](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/consciousness)

In the trees

[Whole-brain emulation · Technology](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/technology?n=wbe)[Whole-brain emulation · Simulations](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/simulations?n=f-wbe)[Whole-brain emulation · Becoming synthetic](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/synthetic?n=s-wbe)

## The people behind the terms

14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the [reading list](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading).

[Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)