But it may be that the best you can do with a simulation is make arrangements seem interesting It may be, but is there any evidence of that or reason to believ

But it may be that the best you can do with a simulation is make arrangements seem interesting It may be, but is there any evidence of that or reason to believe it? How would one even go about defining that problem or proving that? With computer graphics we can produce worlds that approximate the real world well enough to understand and reason about them in similar ways, even though they don't really work like the real thing at all (e.g. hollow 3D objects suffice for a lot of things). Why could we not produce code that makes a character in that world pass for "intelligent"? We don't need to copy the model of life. We just need to understand what parts/features are necessary to create a system that has enough potential to develop something we find sufficiently interesting.