You're contradicting yourself. If there can exist universes that can start from nothing and are not simulated then this universe could have started from nothing and not be simulated.
No. We know the laws of this universe (not perfectly yet of course). However, as far as we know, it seems that those laws don't allow it to be created from nothing. A top-level universe must have different laws. It must be something completely different than our universe. Something that allows it to either always exist or be created from nothing.
>those laws don't allow it to be created from nothing.
What isn't allowed is for the total matter and energy within the universe to increase or decrease. But if we're talking about the creation of the universe itself along with its matter and energy, then there are no laws of physics that forbid it happening from literally nothing. The state of there being nothing is not within the scope of physics, which deals solely with what happens inside our own universe.
It's like if you have an MMO where money can be neither created nor destroyed, but when the server was first booted all the money supply already existed within the world. A player seeking to explain where the money came from could not appeal to the rules of the game, because the rules only apply once the game is already running.
