---
title: "Your Reality · a thought experiment from inside · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reality
description: "Ten questions that build a reality: how big it is, how detailed, the minds in it and who watches. Each answer changes the computing needed to run it."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

1 · The world

# How big is the simulated world?

A simulation only has to compute what’s inside it. One brain, fed the right sensory signals, would feel like a whole world. For scale, the observable universe has about 10^80 atoms.

The simulated world is…Just you One brain, with its senses fed from outside. One room Nothing past the walls is computed. Earth The planet and everyone on it. The solar system Our galaxy A few hundred billion stars. The observable universe Everything we could ever see from here, in principle. 

Each answer updates the reality at right. You can change any answer later.

Think this is wrong? Argue it. 

## Further reading

* [The sandbox: measure any world](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/sandbox)
* [Base reality](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/base-reality)

Your reality · not yet chosen Show ▴ 

## Your reality

The default reality, before you answer anything, takes **8.2 × 10^27 FLOPS**. Our computers could run this **between 2070 and 2089** if growth runs a fifth faster or slower. At the central rate it’s 2078.

Show the numbers

| Year | All computers on Earth | Projected         |
| ---- | ---------------------- | ----------------- |
| 1986 | 3.0 × 10^14 FLOPS      |                   |
| 1993 | 4.4 × 10^15 FLOPS      |                   |
| 2000 | 2.9 × 10^17 FLOPS      |                   |
| 2007 | 6.4 × 10^18 FLOPS      |                   |
| 2025 | 10^21 FLOPS            | 10^21 FLOPS       |
| 2050 |                        | 1.8 × 10^24 FLOPS |
| 2075 |                        | 3.3 × 10^27 FLOPS |
| 2100 |                        | 6.0 × 10^30 FLOPS |

Journey Census Power 

Make a choice to start the chart.

### Tune it

Detail 

Painted set

Real players 

Everyone

Computed when no one’s looking 

0%

Computing growth 

35% a year

The human costs are the author’s judgement, not a measurement. The computing numbers come from the same engine as the sandbox. See the method.