Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

I’ve just finished reading Dark Matter (Blake Crouch) and I want to share my thoughts and hear out yours.

• The first thing I questioned was whether Jason’s escape from the Velocity Laboratory was the correct action. I think it would be better off to act as the person they expect you to be. He could have slowly and carefully gained their trust. He could have learned lots of things about the place and the people. He could have played along and he would have the perfect excuse for “not remembering” his acquaintances or his involvement in the situation he was in. He could have pretended that he doesn’t remember his past due to unknown side effects of whatever happened to him that caused people to act considerately and respectfully towards him (he didn’t know he traveled between realities at that time). He actually did use this situation as an excuse to leave the interview with Amanda. However later on, he chose to escape through the bedroom stall.

In Jason’s defense, he was traumatized due to all things happened prior to the lab, and this strange place with people who appeared to know him just made him even more disoriented than he was already. He felt that he doesn’t belong in this place and urge to leave skyrocketed. He just wanted to leave this unfamiliar place and reunite with his family. However, I still think the scale of bizarreness should have caused him to go along with these “calm and cool” people.

• Secondly, Jason and Amanda made a huge mistake in their quest to find Jason’s universe. They had limited amount of ampoules. The most rational step is to increase the number of ampoules. They should have sought universes where they can collect Ryan’s compounds safely. Obviously, they couldn’t do it before realizing that they were the navigator of the box. After this reveal, they could have traveled to universes such as: “In a different universe, someone in the Velocity Laboratory has decided to steal all the compounds and use the box. They moved quickly towards the box but unluckily (luckily for Jason and Amanda), the laboratory security has noticed their actions and they got shot while cranking the lever down.” At this time, Jason could have opened the door from inside, quickly grab the bag and slam the door. This is just one example. There are infinite number of universes suitable for grabbing compounds. Since the iteration limitation is removed, they would have more shots at finding Jason’s universe and a suitable universe for our dear hero, Amanda.

• Thirdly, the Jasons-Daniela dilemma, but before writing a possible solution about this I’ll attempt to shed light on this multiverse madness. In the novel, the author focuses on how someone’s choice causes a branch to diverge from their reality, whereas this branching occurs due to more fundamental events. In Quantum Physics, position of an electron around the nuclei is probabilistic. There are places of higher probability and lower probability. An electron might be located in any point inside this probability cloud. Each possible outcome is physically realized in some universe (according to Many-worlds Interpretation), and this is just one electron. Think about the number of combinations of all electron’s position outcome. Thus, a universe branches out an infinite number of universes, and each branch generates an infinite amount of universes as well, and so on.

Now, let’s return back to the novel. For the sake of simplicity, I will call our Jason, original Jason, and his universe, original universe. Also, I will call all the Jasons who were kidnapped, victim Jasons, and Jason2s as invader Jasons.

At the start of the novel, there were infinite universes indistinguishable from the original universe, along with infinite universes that have no similarity at all (imagine a universe without Earth). This means, there are infinite amount of universes where victim Jasons were kidnapped by invader Jasons, and original Jason is one of those victim Jasons. Each kidnapping exists in each victim Jason’s universe. That means there is only one Jason -original Jason- who belongs to the original universe since all the kidnapping exists in their respective universe. That, one might think and be wrong. Because when the original Jason was taken to the invader Jason’s universe, each branch from this universe contained doppelgangers of the original Jason, and all these Jasons originated from the original universe. So, the original Daniela belongs to all of them. They all have right to think that they should be the **one** to get back Daniela, because they are. If that is the case, who should be the **one**?

• This problem presents itself as unsolvable, but I believe there is a simple solution. Even though there is only one original Daniela, there are infinite universes with Danielas who are identical to the original Daniela. Whatever differences these parallel universes have are inconsequential to the subject. Maybe in one of them, Alpha Centauri consists of two stars instead of three.

Victim Jasons should have cooperated and tried to find more compounds so each of them can discover an identical universe to the original universe. They should have considered this option instead of hunting each other. There might be invader Jasons in those universes or there might be not. Maybe, after an invader Jason fitted into his new universe, he decided to secure the box and make the entrance impassable, so he went back but he slipped while going down the stairs and died. There were infinite universes just like this. If there was still an invader Jason, well, then they just had to get rid of him. You may ask what about original Jasons from those universes. That is true, there are an infinite amount of victim Jasons, but there are also infinite universes where a victim Jason couldn’t make it back.

• If you want to blow your mind with infinity more, I recommend you to check out the infinite hotel paradox. The mathematics is strong and capable enough to deal with infinity, but somehow, more than seventy theoretical physicist couldn’t find this solution.

• By the way, I can’t stop thinking about that one Jason who proposed others to join forces and conquer the world. That guy was cooking something, and I wanted to see what would happen 😀

by Reality_Drifter