I don't understand the implicit relationship you see between the regularity observed in our reality and consciousness. Why can't one go with the other?

That consciousness nonsense has you reading a post and reacting to it.

The simulation argument is silly, because all it does is "postpone the explanation" as Alan Watts joked in "Time and the more it changes". If our universe can be simulated, then so what? It is the same puzzle with the Matrix as Jed Mac Kenna explained in his famous trilogy: in Matrix 2 or 3 (don't remember), Neo escapes from his "simulated" reality, only to find himself in another. What if the other one is simulated? The movie just stops there, and Neo isn't actually free. He just switched one reality for another.