Featured scenario · 2026-10-23110 of 120
Inner life at every rung · today’s universe
One setup is picked each day from a pool of 120, based on the date. Everyone sees the same one on the same day.
Required computing power rough
6.0 × 1033 FLOPS
Our computers could run this between 2109 and 2144, if steady growth runs a fifth faster or slower (2123 at the central rate). The countdown ▸
More than every computer on Earth put together, by a factor of about 1013.
Computer sizerough
10¹³ × 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
7.4 × 10-71
One universe-computer is every kilogram in the observable universe computing at Lloyd’s bound.
Power draw, Landauer floortextbook
17 TW
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
189.4 thousand years per second
How long it takes, on a clock, to compute one second of simulation on all of humanity’s computers, ~1021 FLOPS.
189.4 thousand years of all Earth’s computing for every simulated second.
World actually computedwild guess
100%
100% of the mass is watched by 101 observers. The observation dial sets how much of the remainder is computed at the full floor.
Instance report
INNER LIFE AT EVERY RUNG
INNER LIFE AT EVERY RUNG
Settings
ScaleOne room
Matter floorTissue
LobbyReal and scripted minds
Inner lives6.0 × 10^30 · biophysical
Computed100%
TimeBranching, pruned, live from 3.8 × 10^9 yrs ago
SlotA scripted character that detects the seams
Computing needed
6.0 × 1033 FLOPS
Computer size10¹³ × every computer on Earth
Universe-computers7.4 × 10-71
FeasibilityBeyond all existing hardware
Judged, not measured
The author’s reading. None of these changes the computing total.
SufferingAs found
Free willGenuinely free
Utilitariandivided
Deontologicalleans for
Virtue ethicsleans for
Existentialistleans for
“Gave every nervous system an inner life. The minds barely change the total. The matter dominates: 6.0 × 10^33 FLOPS.”
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.
“Gave every nervous system an inner life. The minds barely change the total. The matter dominates: 6.0 × 10^33 FLOPS.”
There’s a new one tomorrow. You can also browse the named scenarios: all 9 of them.
Matter computingrough
1015 FLOPS
107 tissue-sized units across room, each updated every 1 ms.
Mind computingrough
6.0 × 1030 FLOPS
Sandberg & Bostrom 2008, level 5
6.0 × 1030 minds, each computed as a biophysical model. Next to the matter, they’re a small part of the total.
Inner liveswild guess
6.0 × 1030
6.0 × 1030 real minds. 0 organisms left as scenery.
Operations so farrough
7.2 × 1050
3.8 billion years on the clock, at 6.0 × 1033 per second.
History that is only storedrough
72.46%
Computing begins 3.8 billion years ago. No humans are present at the start.