Many people in the past feared that they had an evil double who sometimes committed actions for which they were accused. This theory persisted for years despite skeptical women like my mother who remained unconvinced when I repeated this theory when I was five years old.
Eventually some people decided to put quasi-science around it, and developed the “Doppelganger Theory,” that states everyone has a twin in the world. Putting aside the pain I feel for any person that shares my mug, I have to admit that this is technically possible.
First, you have to realize that not all snowflakes are unique. I know that’s what you’ve been hearing since kindergarten, but your teacher probably neglected to factor in the principles of probability and molecular chemistry (though if he or she did, count me considerably impressed).
A snowflake is merely frozen water. There are only so many ways in which water crystallizes, you have a set number of shapes to work with. Granted, the final sum is large and when you start factoring them together you’ll need several pounds worth of zeros to fill it out, but it still end up being a limited number (going down even further, you can only arrange the atoms of an element so many different ways because if you add or take away an atom, you change it into something else).
Now, start factoring out how many snow flakes have flittered down since the dawn of creation. You will eventually find that the number of snowflakes having existed trumps the number of possible snowflakes.
You will probably never see two identical snowflakes side by side (and even if you do, you’ll never convince anyone else because they’ll probably melt before you can wave them over to your microscope), but they statistically could exist. The same goes for the human genome.
Now this world has seen a lot less people than snowflakes (which is good, because that leaves plenty of snowballs for everybody), but the possibilities exist. You only have so many strands of DNA. The genetic combinations are vast, but not limitless. I don’t think we’ll ever have more people than possible “blueprints,” but the idea that there may be repetition exists.
It certainly wouldn’t be as common as some earlier stated; otherwise the world would be made up of 3-point-odd billion twins.
(__Fill_in_blank_joke_about_unfortunate_twin_here__)
Of course, with advances in technology, you have the chance to fiddle with the odds.
I’m not talking about “Boys from Brazil” cloning or anything (if you want my opinion on stem cell research, I say you should harvest the spare cells found in umbilical cords and skip the ethical quagmire of growing so-called “lines” – which totally removes any hint of life or humanity from half of the equation – for research).
I’m talking about the opportunity cyberspace provides for people to duplicate themselves.
If you haven’t encountered it already, meet my LiveJournal internet twin, an alter-Live Paradox.
Note: I include the full version of my default posting image because, A) I’m told it is a very important part of the LJ process and B) I spent a bit of time working on the image that doesn’t get as much attention when it’s shrunk down to postage stamp time.
This is a project I’ve half been working on since August. In the past I’d tried to get an LJ account but didn’t want to pay for it. That’s how I became a Blogspot guy to begin with. I only signed up for a LJ account so I’d wouldn’t have to use the anonymous feature anymore. I did the same thing with Xanga years ago.
That site has been languishing, largely ignored since 2003 (Is it bad that an old friend posted a comment in my guestbook years ago and I only realized it in the course of writing this post? Yeah, that’s what I thought, too…).
Anyway, I just thought I’d acknowledge the newest me running around.
One last word on identity before this gets wrapped up: some have questioned why I went with the handle Jakcal922 and what does it mean, if anything.
I first cobbled together the name late in high school, when I was wrestling Hotmail for an unclaimed moniker.
“Jak” refers to the science fiction adventure series I’ve been mentally scripting since middle school and may eventually finish putting to paper someday.
“Cal” is, of course, a shortened version of my given name.
Put together, “Jakcal” is a personal joke that references my dyslexic brain that reads things back forwards.
The digits at the end is where the justification ends, however. I’d settled on the first half and discovered that many people had done the same and the standard glyph addition (inserting *’s, $’s, and #’s) wasn’t cutting it either. I got so fed up I just randomly typed some numbers and found no one else had thought to add “922.”
Habits quickly became enforced and that’s one of the standard logons I use online (it would display poor security to list others, though I will share my old gaming handle of Dante_Hope).
“Double walkers” do move among us, as long feared by some. Bi-location has been proven to exist, if only online.
While it was nice setting up and customizing a new page, I don’t believe I’ll be straying from this site any time soon. I’ve been putting extra work into it over the past few weeks and my goal is to have 100 posts by the end of the year.
There is only one thing I’d like to add thanks to my dabbling with LJ. I have long envied the posting option where you can choose to include what music is going through your head (either to add thematic flavor to what you’re writing about or showcase your own mental dichotomy). Having waiting long enough I believe I’m going to ape the idea and try to replicate the effect here.
So, to carry us home, let me play you to the door…
Music: “Boy in the Bubble” by Paul Simon
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call.
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo,
The way we look to us all.
The way we look to a distant constellation that’s dying in the corner of the sky.
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry, don’t cry…
