Say that all sapient life was confined to a simulation, and the computer had accumulated hydrogen for fuel on a cosmic scale, disassembling an entire galaxy's worth of stars into gas giants, every now and then bringing one close to the computer so it can be consumed for fuel.
How should that fuel be spent?
Should it be used for an incomprehensibly massive simulation, run for mere millions of years of internal time?
Population would be nigh-infinite.
Real-world time would be billions/trillions of years to make power and heat management easier and make lightspeed appear faster internally.
Or should it be used for a more reasonably scaled simulation, run for a nigh-infinite time?
Population would be trillions.
The simulation could run faster internally than externally if some physical process would destroy it over an absurd timescale; but the faster it runs, the bigger the computer must be, and the slower light travels across it from an internal perspective; so speeding up the simulation makes the speed of light exponentially more annoying.
How should that fuel be spent?
Should it be used for an incomprehensibly massive simulation, run for mere millions of years of internal time?
Population would be nigh-infinite.
Real-world time would be billions/trillions of years to make power and heat management easier and make lightspeed appear faster internally.
Or should it be used for a more reasonably scaled simulation, run for a nigh-infinite time?
Population would be trillions.
The simulation could run faster internally than externally if some physical process would destroy it over an absurd timescale; but the faster it runs, the bigger the computer must be, and the slower light travels across it from an internal perspective; so speeding up the simulation makes the speed of light exponentially more annoying.
