This does not follow. Similarity of the simulation to the ground universe is not necessarily connected in any useful way to utility.
Of course it is. We simulate systems to predict their future states and make the most profitable decisions. Simulation is integral to intelligence.
No. See my earlier example with cellular automata. Our universe isn’t based on cellular automata but we’d still be interested in running simulations of large universes with such a base just because they are interesting. The fact that our universe has very little similarity to those universes doesn’t reduce my utility in running such simulations.
That said, I agree that there should be a rough correlation where we’d expect universes to be more likely to simulate universes similar to them. I don’t think this necessarily has anything to do with utility though, more that entities are more likely to monkey around with the laws of their own universes and see what happens. Due to something like an anchoring effect, entities should be more likely to imagine universes that are in some way closer to their own universe compared to the massive landscape of possible universes.
But, that similarity could be so weak as to have little or no connection to whether the simulators care about the simulated universe.
No. See my earlier example with cellular automata. Our universe isn’t based on cellular automata but we’d still be interested in running simulations of large universes with such a base just because they are interesting. The fact that our universe has very little similarity to those universes doesn’t reduce my utility in running such simulations.
That said, I agree that there should be a rough correlation where we’d expect universes to be more likely to simulate universes similar to them. I don’t think this necessarily has anything to do with utility though, more that entities are more likely to monkey around with the laws of their own universes and see what happens. Due to something like an anchoring effect, entities should be more likely to imagine universes that are in some way closer to their own universe compared to the massive landscape of possible universes.
But, that similarity could be so weak as to have little or no connection to whether the simulators care about the simulated universe.