I also hold that book and it's author in high esteem, but I don't find that quote very useful. Nobody gets wet when you model a hurricane because the model's pu

I also hold that book and it's author in high esteem, but I don't find that quote very useful. Nobody gets wet when you model a hurricane because the model's purpose isn't to make people wet, it's to predict the dynamics of the hurricane at some level of detail. Same goes for fusion plants and biochemical processes. The purpose of a hurricane isn't to make people wet, it's a by-product. If you wanted a simulation that made people wet then that could be arranged, either by modelling rainfall on simulated people or having a simulation that controlled physical water sprays/sprinklers suspended above physical people. I don't know what that would prove though. And going back to Permutation City, (spolier) the whole premise of the book was that brain simulations did have real subjective experiences that were qualitatively indistinguishable from those that occur in "real" physical brains.