I'm saying, because we actually are alive, there's something more than just a simulation or "played back description of reality" happening here.
The idea of a simulation is that it acts out rules that allow it to act like whatever its emulating. So, it's not playing anything back, nor an "if-then else" kind of rule base. It is a cause and effect rule base, where the exchange of information has consequences that result in some output or rendering. So, a simulation can be identical to some kind of reality or system, but it doesn't mean it is of the same scope. While, say, a comet or asteroid has a medium cold enough to allow time crystals to form, and such a system chaotically converges into something very much like our universe, it won't be on the same scale, it's actually a smaller universe but of sufficient density to work. By this notion then there can't be infinite universes created within any single simulation, where a simulation creates a simulation that then also creates a simulation, to infinity and beyond! No, each new simulation will suffer from diminishing returns since this idea is based on dedicating material to form the computational system, why each simulation ends up being a smaller universe than what creates it.
One way to think of this is it's a matrix, and it's at least has 3 dimensions. Each time crystal is a component, like a pixel, that forms a reactive datapoint. So groups of time crystals actually represent pixels that form particles. Now the time crystals don't have to be persistently consistent in their configuration, but they do need to be persistent enough most of the time to build a persistent universe or reality. Think of it like letting go of your hands briefly while doing pull-ups, as long as you re-grasp the bar in time you can continue to do pull-ups.
Now, what if intelligent life formed in one of these simulations. Because the computational system works in an atomized way, they could figure out how to influence their computronium, in this case, some methane, ammonia, and water atoms. As they experiment and tinker, they eventually can sense influences outside their universe has effects on their universe. They graph or plot such influences and literally build a camera-like device that can see outside their universe! Wait! It gets even better. Not only can they see outside their reality, and to their amazement, they discover another universe containing their universe, they learn to build structures in the container universe to explore it! With all the experience they now have of understanding their computational universe, they hack our universe as well.
Don't believe it? Well, think about this, if UFOs are real, and can fly the way they do, just hovering with no reactional engine, if you could hack the universe how could you do that? One approach is to recode space-time so you can control it the way you want to!
OK, not the best kind of proof.
But, it is interesting that intelligent life where ever it maybe just might come from a virtual reality that naturally formed in some dark corner of our universe...
