Doppelgangers - Discuss!

[Chishio Kunrin]

For those of you who don't know, a doppelganger is pretty much a person who looks exactly like someone else, but they aren't related. Twins aren't doppelgangers.

I pretty much never believed in doppelgangers. The TV shows and movies where someone has a doppelganger, so they switch lives for some wacky adventure, certainly didn't help.

But... yesterday... Yesterday made me believe. Yesterday, SoTotallyToby started up a podcast of him, Martyn (inthelittlewood), and some other people. One of those people was a guy named Lewis (not Xephos of the Yogscast). Lewis looked like a guy I kind of knew in high school. But the guy I knew is American and certainly wasn't named Lewis, and Lewis is English. But their faces look exactly alike.

So, I kind of spent yesterday and last night thinking about it, and this morning, it was still on my mind. The moment I got out of bed, I decided "He's a doppelganger. They're real!"
Either that, or...

Spoiler: show

So, let's discuss. Do you believe in doppelgangers? I wonder how and why they exist. It's weird that people can just, by chance, have the same features.

[Lord of Madness]

They can exist. though the chances of someone being born with the same DNA are very very veryx1000 rare.

[Chishio Kunrin]

They can exist. though the chances of someone being born with the same DNA are very very veryx1000 rare.

What're the chances of seeing both people, and one of them having gone to your high school?
Still so surreal, though. He was friends with some of my friends, and this Lewis guy is friends with a couple popular Youtubers I watch.

Also, deja vu. I just deja vu'd typing part of that third sentence there. This week is all kinds of crazy!

[Lord of Madness]

They can exist. though the chances of someone being born with the same DNA are very very veryx1000 rare.

What're the chances of seeing both people, and one of them having gone to your high school?
Still so surreal, though. He was friends with some of my friends, and this Lewis guy is friends with a couple popular Youtubers I watch.

Also, deja vu. I just deja vu'd typing part of that third sentence there. This week is all kinds of crazy!

technically you have an 9x10^99 to 1 chance of having someone with EXACT DNA to you. thats 9 with 99 zeros following it.

Deja vu is when your brain tries to relate a moment to something... Fails... and then makes you feel like it happened anyway.

[The Wandering Magus]

there is a non-zero probability of an exact duplicate of you being present in the same universe.  then again, by the same theory there is a non-zero probability that anything can happen.  quantum mechanics, oh how you confuse us.

[Lord of Madness]

9x10^99
^ pretty much a zero chance. But ill show you the number

there is a 1 in 900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of you having someone else with exact DNA of another

[lurk852]

9x10^99
^ pretty much a zero chance. But ill show you the number

there is a 1 in 900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of you having someone else with exact DNA of another

A good effort, Madness, but what we really need here iiiiis... up-arrow notation! When only the most ridiculously giant numbers will do! 

[Chishio Kunrin]

I think it's more like, enough matching DNA/genes for the physical appearance to match, or at least for their faces to match. I don't think all of their DNA is the same.

[Book Smarts]

9x10^99
^ pretty much a zero chance. But ill show you the number

there is a 1 in 900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of you having someone else with exact DNA of another

Woo, that's not a small number, that's a big number 

[The Wandering Magus]

9x10^99
^ pretty much a zero chance. But ill show you the number

there is a 1 in 900000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 of you having someone else with exact DNA of another

Woo, that's not a small number, that's a big number 

it's a one-in-big-number chance, which means:

.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance

[Rissian]

Whenever we visited my aunt and uncle now and then, my dad noticed someone who lives next to them that looks almost exactly like my oldest sister in fact he almost thought it was her for a while so yeah I believe people who aren't related can look almost exactly alike.

On an interesting note even identical twins have different fingerprints despite looking exactly the same, every person's fingerprints are unique no matter what unless they chemically burned their fingerprints by mistake. 

[Tiger]

I personally think that they're not real. Seriously, the chances of having a person not related to you look exactly like you is probably less than HALF the chance of an alicorn being born in an average normal pony family.

[The Wandering Magus]

still a non-zero probability

[Chishio Kunrin]

I personally think that they're not real. Seriously, the chances of having a person not related to you look exactly like you is probably less than HALF the chance of an alicorn being born in an average normal pony family.

His hair was different, I think. That was the only thing. I'm sure his teeth were likely different. But his face, especially his eyes, looked pretty much just like a guy I knew in high school.

I guess it's just extremely super super rare. Stranger things have happened, though. I mean, c'mon, human chimeras exist, and they're completely natural. To elaborate: A human chimera is someone who's born with two sets of DNA.

Genetics is a very bizarre and fascinating subject.

[Lord of Madness]

I personally think that they're not real. Seriously, the chances of having a person not related to you look exactly like you is probably less than HALF the chance of an alicorn being born in an average normal pony family.

take note. the laws of physics and quantum theory suggest ANYTHING can happen. even suddenly teleporting from your seat right now to the center of Pluto is possible. but the chances are so low it will likely never happen o3o

[The Wandering Magus]

I personally think that they're not real. Seriously, the chances of having a person not related to you look exactly like you is probably less than HALF the chance of an alicorn being born in an average normal pony family.

take note. the laws of physics and quantum theory suggest ANYTHING can happen. even suddenly teleporting from your seat right now to the center of Pluto is possible. but the chances are so low it will likely never happen o3o

because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle xD no matter how large, as long as the mass is less than infinity there's STILL a non-zero probability, no matter how small, that the particle ISN'T where you think it is!

[lurk852]

I personally think that they're not real. Seriously, the chances of having a person not related to you look exactly like you is probably less than HALF the chance of an alicorn being born in an average normal pony family.

take note. the laws of physics and quantum theory suggest ANYTHING can happen. even suddenly teleporting from your seat right now to the center of Pluto is possible. but the chances are so low it will likely never happen o3o

I remember hearing in a class over summer that the chances of teleporting to Jupiter are about one in 10^(10^500). WE CAN HOPE

[The Wandering Magus]

I personally think that they're not real. Seriously, the chances of having a person not related to you look exactly like you is probably less than HALF the chance of an alicorn being born in an average normal pony family.

take note. the laws of physics and quantum theory suggest ANYTHING can happen. even suddenly teleporting from your seat right now to the center of Pluto is possible. but the chances are so low it will likely never happen o3o

I remember hearing in a class over summer that the chances of teleporting to Jupiter are about one in 10^(10^500). WE CAN HOPE

NON ZERO PROBABILITY

[Lord of Madness]

i feel insane numbers about to come up in here

[The Silent Wolf]

If I had a doppleganger... she'd be uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuglllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaah.