Joe, it’s possible there is some type of sentient energy that, for want of a better placeholder, some serious credentialed theorists might call “larger consciousness”. Most science background individuals of this ilk tend to be physicists and of the ones I’m familiar with are invested in the subatomic theorems of physics (quarks, spin, fermions, bosons, spin, leptons, blah, blah). I am not proposing that this (simulation genre theory) explains liquid water on this planet, just proposing that it is a theoretical possibility along with endless other ones. Because western science has had for several centuries a materialistic dogma about observability and measurability any deviance from the material paradigm is a surefire way to lose reputation, serious consideration and status. In fact even suggesting that western science has a paradigm (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962, Thomas Kuhn) will get a PhD in Physics booted from western science classification to philosophy (the original queen of the sciences now exiled to the liberal arts colony).