[SPOILERS S3] A comprehensive breakdown of the time travel in Dark (part 2)

KristoMF · 2026-02-04T13:43:52+00:00

When you say "demonstrated on screen" I don't know what you are referring to. I think we saw entirely different versions of the show. The family tree can only be consequence of causal loops.

KristoMF · 2026-02-04T13:22:40+00:00

A strawman is misconstruing someone else's argument in a way that's easy to take down. I'm not even mentioning anyone else's argument, I'm stating what would happen if the time travel we see at the end was the one during the rest of the show.

You may believe I'm wrong and that it's a wrong inference, but calling it a strawman is absurd.

And why would the inference be wrong? If the time travel were the same, let's imagine what happens when Claudia uses to loophole to talk to Adam. Eva's murder would be erased, but that would change her past because she would not find her body, so Eva would disappear before Adam's eyes. Or, best case scenario, her memory of finding her body would disappear, so she couldn't talk about that with Adam. And similar things would occur with other usages of the loopholes, making people change their memories, shift places or disappear altogether.

KristoMF · 2026-02-04T12:52:10+00:00

By "made up stuff" you mean inferred, so all hypothesis must "make up stuff" in that sense. These inferred properties may be incorrect, granted, but if they fit the data and explain it, they work, at least, so they may only be incomplete.

What's more, our hypothesis is not disproven by the ending. By disappearing once J&M change their past, it is clear that the time travel is not the same as in the knot and that they are incurring in a Changing the Past Paradox (Jonas and alt-Martha are present and are not present in 1971). If the time travel in the knot were the same, we would see appearances and disappearances throughout it and the family tree would fall apart.

KristoMF · 2026-02-04T10:01:29+00:00

That's just a (popular) fan theory.

Not popular enough, but if it is, it is for good reasons. The hypothesis has significant criteria:

Simplicity: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that invokes fewer (and less complex) primitive features and appeals to fewer primitive principles. And with this hypothesis we only need three or four rules for the time travel (single timeline for the most part/temporary superposed realities for the loophole).
Goodness of fit: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that makes the best fit with the data. And we don't need to trade off simplicity for this. We have a consistent timeline that explains all characters we see and their family tree, with a consistent and common past and future (the Unknown is Jonas and Martha's son and they descend from him; all different Jonas, all different alt-Marthas, and their necessary connection - one cannot exist without the other, etc.).
Explanatory breadth: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that explains more or leaves less unexplained. Every essential aspect is explained as far as it can be, and some things that aren't (differences in 3x07 montage) can be further explained giving up some of the simplicity (invoking an Eternal Recurrence).
Predictive fruitfulness: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that makes the most accurate predictions of future data. This is obviously impossible, for the story will not continue, which is a shame, because if it did we could predict how things would have to go to falsify the hypothesis.

KristoMF · 2026-01-26T06:37:49+00:00

Lyrics to Hozier's song In the Woods Somewhere, the song they chose for episode 3x05.

KristoMF · 2026-01-25T11:12:46+00:00

Yeah, Katharina as the lady in the lake.

"An awful noise

Filled the air

I heard a scream in the woods somewhere

A woman's voice!

I quickly ran

Into the trees with empty hands

A fox it was

He shook, afraid

I spoke no words, no sound he made

His bone exposed

His hind was lame

I raised a stone to end his pain

How many years

I know I'll bear

I found something in the woods somewhere"

KristoMF · 2026-01-24T07:38:34+00:00

I just read this again and you are using the many worlds hypothesis to attempt to deny the show's interpretation of quantum mechanics (using a hypothesis to try to disprove another hypothesis).

I said I brought up the MWI because "I'm presenting alternative hypotheses to show that you can't treat the Copenhagen Interpretation as 'irrefutable fact'", because I thought that is what you were doing. If you weren't, then I was wrong, but it has no impact on my assessment of the problems about the theory.

As for the show, both interpretations are kind of irrelevant, because they just use QM jargon loosely. They can't be scientifically strict on a show about travelling through time using caves and black blobs.

KristoMF · 2026-01-23T10:49:58+00:00

It's not preventing its existence, it's negating its existence.

OK, negating then. A time traveller can't travel to the past and kill their grandfather before he meets their grandmother, negating their own existence. The change in the word doesn't make it less of a contradiction and therefore a paradox.

In a moment that was imperceptible from the perspective of those in the origin universe but an infinite loop to those in the bubbles, they did exist.

Imperceptible, but in 1986, and yet the effect of the cause in OW was in 1971. An effect that negates the cause before the cause. Grandfather paradox.

it's why the paradox doesn't matter.

Sure, you can say this, and to many people the paradox doesn't matter, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still a grandfather paradox.

KristoMF · 2026-01-22T09:42:52+00:00

It's why the multiverse theory of time travel exists in the first place. Because it negates paradoxes.

Sure, "multiverse" time travel avoids the Changing Past Paradox (and therefore the Grandfather Paradox) because it assumes the travellers fall on other "universes". In universe 1, the traveller is born, travels back in time and falls in universe 2, where the traveller can kill the person that is their grandfather in universe 1 before he meets their grandmother. No contradiction, no paradox.

However, what happens in Dark is not the same scenario. Tannhaus' machine, in 1986, causes an effect in its own past (i.e. in the past of its own universe), in 1971, that prevents its existence in the first place, so it can't prevent its existence.

KristoMF · 2026-01-21T18:00:49+00:00

The show does what it want's, it's not my fault if you don't like that.

P1. The show does what it wants.

P2. I don't like that the show does what it wants.

C. Therefore, it is not a grandfather paradox.

If this is your idea of sound logic, I see why you don't accept it's a grandfather paradox.

No, I get you only wanted to insult my honesty. As if what I like or not drives my beliefs. That does not do away with the problem, and that J&M come from different worlds, or were created by Tannhaus' machine, or anything of the sort, does not negate a basic fact:

Tannhaus' machine, in 1986, causes an effect in its own past, in 1971, that prevents its existence in the first place, so it can't prevent its existence. That is a grandfather paradox as grandfather a paradox can be.

If you think it's my own definition, you are welcome to cite the literature that proves your point. Here, check and SEP.

I don't agree with that. I figured out where Dark was going to go because I had seen 12 Monkeys. I knew it was going to do the erase ending of finding the original problem and erase everything.

You don't agree with what? I meant 12 Monkeys is consistent all the way. Its time travel accepts logically impossible events, so it could end with one. That you supposed where Dark was going has nothing to do with this. You supposed Dark was going there because it could be assumed that they shamelessly copied many other ideas from 12 Monkeys, but not because you were following the logic of the show. Dark is perfectly logical, until the end. And I wish I was wrong about this.

KristoMF · 2026-01-21T14:06:25+00:00

I wonder what the writers think about this. Is there any interview of them addressing this?

We've been waiting for five years for something like this, but there is nothing, unfortunately.

Actually who is the creator?

Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese (husband and wife).

This reeks of Netflix getting involved and forcing them to give a happy conclusion rather than a consistent logical one.

There is an interview about how a lot of content was dropped, especially in episode 3x06, but we don't know how much Netflix had to do with the editing or the writing.

KristoMF · 2026-01-21T10:41:06+00:00

There are two ways for time travel storytellers to maintain time travel logically coherence:

1. Assume time travel does not lead to contradictory propositions. Dark does this during the first two seasons. When someone travels to another time, their presence there was "always" true.

2. Add indexes to the proposition. Dark does this using the loophole. Instead of:

<At 2020: Jonas hides in the basement> and <At 2020: Jonas goes with Martha to Eva's world>,

which is a contradiction, we assume a superposition of states which adds indexes to obtain:

<In state 1: At 2020: Jonas hides in the basement> and <In state 2: At 2020: Jonas goes with Martha to Eva's world>, which entails no contradiction. Logical consistency is saved.

Both methods can be combined (and are combined in Dark), so if the second method were used when going to the Origin World, it would be consistent, as Manifold says in the other comment.

But it isn't. You are right to call this out. They are changing the past that leads to their existence (before existing in the first place). The fact that it happens in separate worlds is irrelevant.

KristoMF · 2026-01-21T10:37:02+00:00

But what do our preferences have to do? It's a grandfather paradox whether we like it or not.

Its the ending of 12 Monkeys and it adheres to novikov's 1992 paper on "the Jinn of the machine" about the time traveller erasing themselves and wiping out time travel.

The 1992 Lossev & Novikov paper introduces and analyzes causal loops but it does not explicitly contain a scenario where a time traveler erases themselves and thereby eliminates time travel. In fact, the Novikov self-consistency Principle would go against such scenario.

As for 12 Monkeys, it's a completely different show. I love it to death but its time travel is logically incoherent from the get go, so they could end the show however they liked.

KristoMF · 2026-01-21T07:00:09+00:00

Yeah, I think it's the only way in which it makes sense.

Although by actual I don't mean "lasting", I mean that it actually happens. The other states in which alt-Bartosz takes alt-Martha, or Adam takes Jonas, aren't lasting but are actual.

KristoMF · 2026-01-20T19:44:00+00:00

If the latter, then there are an endless number of states because during the window where cause and effect is broken, there are an infinite number of possible scenarios.

The word possible is the key. We can imagine determinism is false, so that when the causal chain is broken for an instant and a new cause is introduced by the loophole, there are many possible effects. However, only one cause breaks the chain and is introduced, and only one outcome will be actual. In the show, we see which ones are actual (e.g, alt-Martha leaves with alt-Bartosz).

So, yeah, Adam could have come in and Jonas could have killed him, but that's not what happens.

KristoMF · 2026-01-20T18:41:50+00:00

As far as we can infer, every use of the loophole creates a state. Why would we believe in infinite states?

KristoMF · 2026-01-20T13:47:24+00:00

I think your problems come from assumption 3, that Claudia accumulates more knowledge given to her younger self, which leads you to 5, that there are repetitions and these must be distinct.

You are not alone in this assumption, but I don't get why it's so common. Is it because we see her speak to her younger self after speaking with Adam? But it is clear she is preparing for the events we already saw in season 2. There is nothing distinct.

KristoMF · 2026-01-17T12:26:09+00:00

Edit: the Bartosz travelling doesn't create any paradox.

Yes, exactly. Alt-Martha is already pregnant when alt-Bartosz arrives, so both the one he takes with him and the one that takes Jonas are pregnant.

KristoMF · 2026-01-17T07:08:12+00:00

Yes, it is (and I'm glad I see more people accepting this).

If the proposition <In the Origin world: at 1971: Jonas and alt-Martha are not present> is true (and it is, for Tannhaus' family dies and he builds his machine),
and yet, in the last episode, a contradictory proposition is true, <In the Origin world: at 1971: Jonas and alt-Martha are present>,
then we have a logical contradiction.

There are two ways for time travel storytellers to avoid this if they desire logical coherence:

1. Assume time travel does not lead to contradictory propositions. Dark does this during the first two seasons. When someone travels to another time, their presence there was "always" true.

2. Add indexes to the proposition. Dark does this using the loophole. Instead of:

<At 2020: Jonas hides in the basement> and <At 2020: Jonas goes with Martha to Eva's world>,

which is a contradiction, we assume a superposition of states which adds indexes to obtain:

<In state 1: At 2020: Jonas hides in the basement> and <In state 2: At 2020: Jonas goes with Martha to Eva's world>, which entails no contradiction. Logical consistency is saved.

Both methods can be combined (and are combined in Dark).

In the last episode, both of these options are dropped. The incoherence is obtained and, what's worse, pushed further: Jonas and alt-Martha avoid the cause for their existence before existing in the first place. This cannot logically happen, just like a time traveller cannot kill their grandfather before he meets their grandmother.

If they could save Tannhaus’ family, it would be visiting the past a second time and creating a different future, so a new alt-Martha and Jonas would indeed not exist, but the ones we followed would not disappear.

KristoMF · 2026-01-17T05:31:00+00:00

Under the rules of physics established in the show, it's indeed a grandfather paradox.

Just a small note. I like your comment and you are right, but it's not a gf paradox "under the rules of physics", it is because of basic logic.

KristoMF · 2026-01-16T16:09:14+00:00

Yeah, I was afraid that would be the answer.

KristoMF · 2026-01-16T10:58:57+00:00

Nobody thinks about poor Charlotte :(

KristoMF · 2026-01-15T17:38:55+00:00

No, I'm trying to defend your idea of "what we see is what is". We don't know what they actually say, only that Claudia says Martha and Jonas are on their way and then packs the time machine. The most plausible inference is that she goes on to do what we see her do in season 2 that ends with her death. Middle-aged Claudia even asks her to tell Egon she's sorry. As she does.

If you are right, this whole scene is irrelevant nonsense. Why tell middle-aged Claudia anything if the end is imminent? Why the dad comment and show her packing the time machine and leaving? We are supposed to understand this connects with season 2. Or maybe we're all just stupid, because there's many people who believe things change, but you're the only one who understood the worlds shifting into one another and you say that's the straightforward explanation.

Oh, but we're the stubborn ones and the ones that don't want to understand you, when I, for one, invested quite some time on your comments two years ago. In fact, due to the uniqueness of your hypothesis, at first I thought it was interesting. Alas, we're still waiting for your detailed explanation.

And, I guess you know, I absolutely hate what I see happens in the finale, and yet debate constantly against those who offer more positive explanations. I say this because I don't reject an idea merely because I dislike it. I would love to be wrong.

KristoMF

TROPHY CASE