A system is conscious if:

(1) It maintains an internal model whose states are revised through interaction with constraints not fully determined by the model's own prior state. Constraints normally would mean reality (the world outside the Markov blanket), but we're talking simulation here.

(2) At least one frontier is currently open within that model — active resolution (awareness) is underway. Not dead.

(3) That frontier's resolutions recursively re-enter as inputs to the system's own subsequent frontier states. Friston's "embodied perception-action loop".

(1) & (2) could be said to apply to an inanimate object like a thermostat. (3) is the interesting one as the driver in organic life is the entropy gradient. Our "will to live" is a fight against thermodynamic decay and disorder. Maybe that could be simulated, a fight against glitching out, who knows.