I also hold that book and it's author in high esteem, but I don't find that quote very useful. Nobody gets wet when you model a hurricane because the model's purpose isn't to make people wet, it's to predict the dynamics of the hurricane at some level of detail. Same goes for fusion plants and biochemical processes.

The purpose of a hurricane isn't to make people wet, it's a by-product. If you wanted a simulation that made people wet then that could be arranged, either by modelling rainfall on simulated people or having a simulation that controlled physical water sprays/sprinklers suspended above physical people. I don't know what that would prove though.

And going back to Permutation City, (spolier) the whole premise of the book was that brain simulations did have real subjective experiences that were qualitatively indistinguishable from those that occur in "real" physical brains.

To quote another book I hold in very high regard (and I love Permutation City too):

"The King leaned over, looked an saw, yes, the Middle Ages simulated to a T, all digital, binary , and nonlinear, and there was the land of Dandelia, The Icicle Forest, the palace with the Helical Tower, the Aviary That Neighed, and the Treasury with a Hundred Eyes as well, and there was Ineffabelle herself, taking a slow, stochastic stroll through the simulated garden, and her circuits glowed red and gold as she picked simulated daisies, and hummed a simulated song."

The key is in the last two words.

Unlike the other processes mentioned thought is computation and it is perfectly possible to run computation on wetware or on an emulator and get the same results.