Dark Matter 1.4: The Multiverse Unveiled

A highly informative episode 1.4 of Dark Matter up on Apple TV+ today, as Jason 1 and Amanda make their way through "The Corridor" (the title of this episode) and therein partake of the doors to the multiverse.

And I have to say that my favorite spoken line in this episode is when Jason tells Amanda that the entire corridor with its doors don't really exist, they are rather the result of their human minds struggling to make a little sense of a reality that the human mind cannot comprehend.  The only thing missing in this astute observation was that the true conduit(s) to the universes Jason and Amanda were accessing were the thing-in-itself, which Immanuel Kant realized the human intellect could never comprehend.

Kant made that observation in the 1700s (in our universe).  Jason 1 also draws upon a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics, which of course brings us to the 1900s, and underlies all of Dark Matter. That principle is that the mere observation of a subatomic particle can change it.  Jason explains that he and Amanda can get to the alternate reality they seek by merely clearly thinking about that reality.  This QM on the macro-level has been a staple of lots of science fiction, and Dark Matter is parlaying it very effectively.

Indeed, Jason goes on to explain that his kidnapping that launched this narrative was the result of Jason  2 figuring out in which alternate universe Jason 1 was residing -- actually, not figuring it out, but envisioning it in some intense way -- and thereby finding and identifying the door into that reality.  Since the multiverse consists of all possible realities, which in practice is an infinite number of places, this QM way of locating the place that you want to visit is a good thing indeed to have on hand.

And Dark Matter, as of its fourth episode, is a very good thing.  It's rare to find philosophy woven so well into a thriller, inside a corridor with so many tempting and dangerous doors.

See also Dark Matter 1.1-1.2: Break-Neck Action and Philosophic Contemplation

the corridors under Fordham University figure in this novel ...

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