If reality is a simulation, isn't the idea that reality is a simulation itself a simulation? His point is not that a depiction and a person are identical, but that a well-realized virtual life could be genuine, not counterfeit. Scholars read the simulation hypothesis along these lines — as a "new technoscientific religious narrative" (Virk, 2025). The simulation hypothesis is the latest, most literal-minded entry — set apart by its scientistic wrapper, congruent with our technological metaphors. That is a symptom, not a position, and nothing here shows simulation belief is caused by derealization; at most the resemblance is a research question.