“Reproducing in another Universe” is a tricky concept! I feel like simple beings that succeed in this manner should be thought of as memes from the perspective of Universes like A that instantiate them. Their presence in B is kind of irrelevant: maybe A instantiates the agents because of some trade in B, but A is free to place pretty much arbitrary weights on other Universes and the preferences therein. Given this ambiguity, we might as well remove one step and just say that A likes the B agent for some unstated arbitrary reason, without specific mention of trades. We could view Conway glider guns as a popular meme from the multiverse, but what use is that?
I’m reminded of Samuel Alexander’s thought experiment, in which Earth has a one-way portal to Paradise. Perhaps most people would take this portal initially; however, from the perspective of Earth’s ecosystem, entering this portal is equivalent to death. Therefore, after enough natural selection, we should expect that beings on Earth will treat the portal with the same degree of fear and avoidance as death, even if they can clearly see Paradise on the other side. Arguably, we already find ourselves in this situation with respect to our logical continuation in the blissful afterlife of many religions.
Ultimately, I feel that a multiverse trade only provides benefits in a Universe of our own imagination, which may be said to exist in some logical sense, but lacks an objective measure relative to all the other worlds that we could (or could not) have imagined. And in some of these worlds, the trade would instead be detrimental!
“Reproducing in another Universe” is a tricky concept! I feel like simple beings that succeed in this manner should be thought of as memes from the perspective of Universes like A that instantiate them. Their presence in B is kind of irrelevant: maybe A instantiates the agents because of some trade in B, but A is free to place pretty much arbitrary weights on other Universes and the preferences therein. Given this ambiguity, we might as well remove one step and just say that A likes the B agent for some unstated arbitrary reason, without specific mention of trades. We could view Conway glider guns as a popular meme from the multiverse, but what use is that?
I’m reminded of Samuel Alexander’s thought experiment, in which Earth has a one-way portal to Paradise. Perhaps most people would take this portal initially; however, from the perspective of Earth’s ecosystem, entering this portal is equivalent to death. Therefore, after enough natural selection, we should expect that beings on Earth will treat the portal with the same degree of fear and avoidance as death, even if they can clearly see Paradise on the other side. Arguably, we already find ourselves in this situation with respect to our logical continuation in the blissful afterlife of many religions.
Ultimately, I feel that a multiverse trade only provides benefits in a Universe of our own imagination, which may be said to exist in some logical sense, but lacks an objective measure relative to all the other worlds that we could (or could not) have imagined. And in some of these worlds, the trade would instead be detrimental!