Same word. Different claim.
We already use the word. Weather. Rockets. Cars. Games. Then someone uses the same word for a stronger claim: that the containing reality itself is implemented. Those are different questions.
Pull the word toward physics. Take one law. Then the next. Experience is empty on purpose.
Energy and momentum are conserved. Mass is measured. Charge is conserved.
This is the loudest physics. A substrate is stuff that can be arranged.
Simulation
Same word. The claim beneath it changes.
A tool inside our world
We use simulations to learn what rockets, cars, climates, games, and bodies may do.
This is
Practice: SpaceX, Tesla, weather, physics, robotics, games. These are models we run on purpose.
This is not
Their existence does not prove our world is simulated. It does make the thought experiment less abstract.
We already run worlds that are not the world. That is interesting. It is not a verdict.