[The5thElephant]

The nuclear explosion analogy is a bit off since for anything living in the simulation the nuclear explosion would be quite real. The explosion isn't real for us in the physical world because it cannot interact with us, but a simulated mind can interact with us in the real world.

> Only a small subset of what our brains do is actually conscious. What makes some information processing more special than others that some of it is conscious and the rest is not?

This is an excellent way of approaching the question, but I just as easily can say isn't it more likely that the difference is the pattern of the information and not the strict physical structure that makes it? Look at how many different physical structures and mechanisms we have for seeing, hearing, breathing, touching, etc across nature. Many of them are fundamentally different from each other, but end up in the same result of a sense.

Isn't it more likely that conscious thinking is like other senses in that it's a kind of information processing, rather than a specific mechanism of processing?

This also make it more likely to answer your question of why are some mental processes conscious and the majority are not, it would seem far more likely that the brain's neuronal structures (most of which are the same basic cell throughout the brain, just in different types of structures) discover different patterns rather than fundamentally different physical processes.