Risk Taking Strategies in the Multiverse

I have recently read two books about multiple universes / dimensions.  The first is American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett.  A SciFi / Fantasy / Horror story.  The second is Dark Matter by Blake Crouch.

Theoretically, if there are multiple versions of each of us throughout the multiverse we can take BIG risks and yet have another chance.  What freedom!  I think I will try base diving tomorrow.  In American Elsewhere some of the characters just blew their brains out to reset in a new body.  In Dark Matter you just take another ride in the "Box".

But Wait -  In Dark Matter when Jason 1 meets Jason 2 they are not too friendly.  Jason 2 can't understand that.   He focused on the research to develop multiverse travel while Jason 1 fell for his true love and had the perfect family.  Now Jason 2 wants them to switch-  You get your cake and eat it too.  What could be better?

I think the lesson of the multiverse is that you are born into this world alone and you go out of it alone too.  Just because someone is your duplicate does not mean that they are you (according to these books).  Unless there is some sort of hive-like connection that brings all of the versions together we are ultimately just individuals.  We are not some sort of giant amoeba of a multiverse being. 

So until the next multiverse book comes out and tells me different I am going to try and steer clear of of any other versions of me.  Let them stay in their own universe.

Dark Matter (2016) Blake Crouch

Dark Matter (2016)   Blake Crouch

Ever feel like you were your own worse enemy?

Well I bet you never had another version of yourself pop out of the multiverse and switch places with you swooning your lovely wife and sucking up to your 15 year old kid - much better then you ever did.  That is how it all starts off for Jason Dessen.  A middling Physics professor at a small Chicago college who threw a way a promising research career to support his marry a beautiful and talented artist who was pregnant with their child.  She too sacrificed her career for the family.  In another part of the multiverse, Jason 2 apparently made the other choice and invented multiverse hopping but wanted his cake and eat it too by taking over the sweet family life the Jason 1 had created.

It is a fast action adventure and takes the multiverse spin in a much different direction then Bennett’s American Elsewhere.  Here the monster is you -  or almost you.

Once Jason 1 realizes what has been done to him and that Jason 2’s universe is going to be lethal he heads out on his own multiverse hunt eventually finding his way back home.  But he is not alone in wanting what Jason 2 stole from him and that is where the adventure really begins.

Jason 1 does not make the choices that I would make  - at least up to the end.  For a genius he sure makes some bonehead mistakes and nearly gets himself and his personal shrink – Amanda -  killed.

How do you fool yourself?  When each of you knows basically the same things and minds work pretty much the same.  Except, of course, that there are varying degrees of homicidal tendencies in all the Jason’s who have survived the labyrinth of the multiverse to arrive in their “home”  Chicago.

Which makes me wonder, what happened to Amanda(s).  Should there have been more than one if there are so many Jason’s?  Just saying.  She liked Jason so you might think that at least one version would have tried to follow him. 

Finally, what will be the key to getting out of this world with so many Jason’s?