---
title: "Simulated minds in ancestor simulations · Hypothetical minds · Entities · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities/h-ancestor
description: "Bostrom's trilemma: either almost no civilisations reach a posthuman stage, or almost none run ancestor simulations, or we almost certainly live in one."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

[Entities](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/entities) › Hypothetical minds

# Simulated minds in ancestor simulations

unobserved Proposed in the literature. Nobody has observed one.

Bostrom's trilemma: either almost no civilisations reach a posthuman stage, or almost none run ancestor simulations, or we almost certainly live in one.

Bostrom's trilemma: either almost no civilisations reach a posthuman stage, or almost none run ancestor simulations, or we almost certainly live in one. It assumes the mind doesn't depend on what it runs on (substrate independence). It's a philosophical argument, not an observation.

In the trees

[Ancestor simulation · Simulations](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/trees/simulations?n=f-ancestor)

## Sources

* Bostrom N (2003). Are we living in a computer simulation? Philosophical Quarterly 53(211):243-255\. doi:10.1111/1467-9213.00309.