Simulation Hypothesis
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Sandbox · what it takes to run a simulated universe

Required computing power rough
1.3 × 1068 FLOPS
Never on one star’s power with ordinary logic, even at the thermodynamic floor. The countdown ▸
More power than the Sun puts out, even on ordinary chips at the thermodynamic limit (one bit erased per operation, at room temperature).
roughlog scale: all of today’s computers → a universe-sized machine
roughshare of the computing that goes to matter rather than minds
wild guessshare of the mass computed at the full floor
wild guessfully computed minds among all inner lives
roughshare of the past that’s only recorded, never run
Computer sizetextbook
10²¹ × a Sun of Landauer-limit chips
The Sun’s whole output, at the thermodynamic floor of one bit erased per operation, at room temperature.
At Lloyd’s bound this takes 246.3 trillion tonnes of matter, all of it computing.
Feasibility
Beyond the Sun’s whole output
More power than the Sun emits, even with conventional logic at the thermodynamic floor.
Universe-computerstextbook
1.6 × 10-36
One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound.
Power draw, Landauer floortextbook
1021 Suns
The thermodynamic minimum for flipping bits at room temperature. The best real hardware uses about five billion times more energy than that.
1021 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
4.2 × 1039 years per second
How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, ~1021 FLOPS.
3.1 × 1029 ages of the universe, on all of Earth’s computing, for every simulated second.
World actually computedwild guess
100%
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.

How sensitive is this number?

Varying only the tagged inputs, eight draws in ten fall between 3.2 × 1067 and 5.7 × 1068 FLOPS (−0.6 to +0.6 orders of magnitude around the figure shown). This is a sensitivity, not a probability about the world.

Computation per unit of matter, atom floor rough−0.6 to +0.6

No effect at these settings: cost of a painted backdrop per observer.

Each input swung alone across its 80% range; how many orders of magnitude it moves the total. Spreads (one standard deviation) by tag: measured ±12%, textbook ±41%, rough ×3.2, wild guess ×10. The spreads are set by tag, not measured for each input. Dial settings are choices, not estimates, and carry no spread. Not in the range at all: the choice of grain, classical versus quantum hosts, the one-operation-per-FLOP mapping, memory, and reversible computing.

In human terms

Power on today’s best chips measured1.8 × 1057 W, 5.2 × 1044 times the world’s electricity supply
Current AI accelerators rough1.3 × 1053, at about 1015 operations a second each
Hardware price rough$4.0 × 1057, 3.6 × 1043 times a year of world output
Electricity, per year rough$1.6 × 1057 at $0.10 a kilowatt-hour
Kardashev type textbook5.1, beyond type III, the top of the scale (humanity is about 0.7; type I commands a planet’s power, II a star’s, III a galaxy’s)

Prices assume about $30,000 per accelerator. These figures are for running it with today’s technology. The physical floors are in the tiles above.

Instance map

YOUMINDS 8.2 billionMATTER · ATOMCOMPUTED 100%TIME · LINEAREARTH · SUFFERING AS FOUND

Reality rendering

EARTH · ATOM100% COMPUTED

Computational complexity

MATTER1.3 × 1068​MINDSABSORBED× TIME×11020​1040​1060​1080​10100​PHONELAPTOPGPU RACKSUPERCOMPUTERALL EARTH’S COMPUTERSDYSON SWARMLANDAUER SUNEARTH-MASS ULTIMATE COMPUTERJUPITER BRAINSUN COMPUTERGALAXY COMPUTERUNIVERSE COMPUTERTOTAL 1.3 × 1068​

Consciousness distribution

HUMAN8.2 billionDOLPHIN100 million sceneryDOG4 billion sceneryPIG2.7 billion sceneryBIRD120 billion sceneryMOUSE85 billion sceneryFROG580 billion sceneryFISH34.2 trillion sceneryINSECT1018​ sceneryFRUIT FLY9.0 × 1018​ scenery

Consciousness timeline

BANG · EARTH · LIFEHUMANS1900NOWSTART · 99.9999991% STORED BEFORE THISFIRST HUMAN MIND (PREINSTALLED)

Multiverse branching

One timeline, one state, one total.

Infinite regress

ONE UNIVERSE-COMPUTER...
A simulated computer can’t out-compute the world it runs in. If each world gives 1% of its computing to the next, the stack is 27 layers deep before the innermost one runs on a laptop. Build a stack.

Observer impact

What exists (matter, log scale)100%
What gets the full floor100%
What some mind observes1.4 × 10-6%
Bars use a log scale from 10−40 to 1, because on a linear scale the small bars would be invisible. Matter someone is watching is computed in full. Matter nobody is watching may be held as stored values.

Bostrom’s trilemma

Bostrom’s arithmetic, applied to this scenario as the simulated world. A mature civilisation computing with an Earth-mass ultimate computer runs 2.4 × 107 copies of it at once. You set the other two fractions.

EXTINCT FIRST50%DECLINE TO SIMULATE50%OBSERVERS LIKE YOU WHO ARE SIMULATED99.9999835%

Arithmetic, not a verdict. You set two of the fractions. The number of copies comes from the processing power this world takes and the computer you chose. The third bar follows from all three.

Judged, not measured

These panels look at the setup through moral frameworks. They’re the author’s judgement, not a measurement, and none of them changes the computing total above.

Ethics consequence map

SUFFERINGINNER LIVESFREEDOMSTAKESAUTHENTICITYHONESTY

Four schools

Axis Util.Deont.VirtueExist.
Suffering??✓✓
Inner lives✓✓✓✓
Free will???✗
Stakes??✓✓
Truth??✓?
✓ leans for · ? divided · ✗ leans against. Each column is a simplified model of a school, not a verdict.

Moral weight

Real minds86%
Scripted characters0%
Animals with an inner life0%
Scenery5%
The operator9%
Moral weight goes with the logarithm of the headcount and with how rich each mind’s inner life is. It’s a simplified model.

Suffering presence

  1. Off
  2. Background hum
  3. As foundthe level we see
  4. Raised

As found. The amount that seems to exist: disease, grief and the rest. This is the baseline.

Consists of
disease, grief, hunger, boredom
Justification
none offered; this is the baseline we see
How each school judges this level of suffering
  • Utilitariandivided
  • Deontologicaldivided
  • Virtue ethicsleans for
  • Existentialistleans for
A modelling setting. Never a way to tell who is real.

Tensions in this design

A past that was never computed
Fossils, photographs and memories are preinstalled, so the past is a set of stored records, not computed history.
→ Move the start date back until memories refer to events that were actually computed.

Report card

Instance report
A RECENTLY STARTED WORLD
Settings
ScaleEarth
Matter floorAtom
LobbyMultiplayer
Inner lives8.2 billion · functional
Computed100%
TimeLinear, live from 1900
Computing needed
1.3 × 1068 FLOPS
Computer size10²¹ × a Sun of Landauer-limit chips
Universe-computers1.6 × 10-36
FeasibilityBeyond the Sun’s whole output
Judged, not measured
The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total.
SufferingAs found
Free willFeels free
Utilitariandivided
Deontologicalleans for
Virtue ethicsleans for
Existentialistdivided
“Worked out Earth at atom resolution: 1.3 × 10^68 FLOPS, or 10²¹ × a Sun of Landauer-limit chips.”
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.
Link format

The whole state of this page lives in its link, so a link can be written by hand, by a script or by an agent. Parameters for /sandbox:

  • sc: scale of the simulated domain. brain, room, earth, solar, galaxy, universe
  • fi: matter floor, the finest level computed. 0 painted, 1 organ, 2 tissue, 3 cell, 4 organelle, 5 protein, 6 molecule, 7 atom, 8 particle, 9 quark, 10 qfield, 11 qfull
  • lb: who is real. single, multi, npc
  • co: inner-lives cutoff: which beings have experience. 0 everything, 1 fly and up, 2 insect and up, 3 fish and up, 4 frog and up, 5 mouse and up, 6 bird and up, 7 pig and up, 8 dog and up, 9 dolphin and up, 10 human and up, 11 nobody
  • mm: how a mind is computed. scripted, functional, biophysical, molecular, quantum, outside
  • ob: percentage of the world rendered in full. integer 0 to 100
  • tm: time model. linear, cyclic, tree, manyworlds
  • sy: start year of the simulation. integer, -13800000000 to 2026
  • su: suffering dial. off, low, natural, high
  • fw: free will. determined, dice, libertarian, illusion
  • sl: optional: the visitor’s slot. player, npc, operator
  • pl: optional: number of real players. integer 1 to 1000000000000000

Example: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/sandbox?sc=earth&fi=7&lb=multi&co=10&mm=functional&ob=100&tm=linear&sy=1900&su=natural&fw=illusion. The same for every tool, and the site’s open data, at /llms.txt.

Compare and cite

Up to 3 worlds, kept in this browser only.
Matter computingrough
1.3 × 1068 FLOPS
1.3 × 1050 atom-sized units across Earth, 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 × 1027.
At this matter floor the brains are already computed as matter, so minds add nothing to the total.
Inner liveswild guess
8.2 billion
8.2 billion real minds. 4.5 × 1020 organisms left as scenery.
Operations so farrough
5.3 × 1077
126 years on the clock, at 1.3 × 1068 per second.
History that is only storedrough
99.9999991%
Computing begins in 1900. 1.6 billion humans are present at the start, with preinstalled memories.