There is a 0.8% Chance You Have a Doppelganger in the World
“So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
Outline
- Introduction
- Likelihood of Having a Doppelganger
- Two Categories of Doppelgangers
- Virtual Doppelgangers and the Psychological Effects
The term “doppelgänger,” or simply doppelganger, is derived from 19th-century German and means “double-goer.” Doppelgangers are simply unrelated look-alikes.
Surprisingly, many people in history, and perhaps some people today, believed that every person had a doppelganger somewhere in the world. A contrary belief says that every person is inherently unique. Neither of these propositions seems to be 100% true, but the latter is closer to the truth.
Likelihood of Having a Doppelganger
Teghan Lucas and Maciej Henneberg set out to determine how unique people really are, and they found that the chances of any two people sharing just eight physical traits are one in a trillion or 0.0000000001%. However, this only holds on an individual case-by-case basis.
When we broaden our scope and consider the world population, which hit eight billion about ten days ago, we see that the odds of a person having a doppelganger somewhere in the world is just one in 135 or 0.74%.
Way greater odds than before, but still fairly low. However, this probability was calculated using the population in 2016, which was about 7.4 billion. The world population just hit 8 billion about 10 days ago, so the chances of you having a doppelganger have increased to one in 125 or 0.8%. But it still hasn’t changed that much.
Let’s take a step back and consider what makes someone a doppelganger. “Unrelated look-alike” is a vague description, so we can divide doppelgangers into two categories.
Two Categories of Doppelgangers
Vaguely Similar Doppelgangers
Those in the first category are those where several similarities may appear in facial structures like spacing between the eyes and shape of the jaw, but most of the similarities will appear in the two, out of chance, having similar haircuts and cosmetics like glasses and piercings. This very well may constitute the majority of doppelgangers in the world.
Brody Feigl and… Brody Feigl?
Take the famous example of two minor league baseball pitchers having the same height and even the same first and last names. The pitchers, both named Brody Feigl, have beards of roughly the same color and wear similar glasses. However, upon close examination, you will notice several differences between these two men. If one of them had shaved, the only noteworthy similarity would be their names.
Facial Recognition-Fooling Doppelgangers
Doppelgangers in the second category are those that might have the capability of fooling facial recognition software. Imagine setting your iPhone down, only to leave and come back to find someone who looks basically identical to you unlock it with their face.
You might say it could have been an identical twin, but they are explicitly omitted from the definition of doppelganger since identical twins are obviously related.
But, in fact, it’s true — identical twins can indeed fool facial recognition software. Unfortunately, I could not find any sources covering reports of doppelgangers fooling facial recognition. But I think it’s safe to say it’s never happened.
Virtual Doppelgangers and the Psychological Effects
Shifting gears just a bit, let’s dive into what can be called virtual doppelgangers. Virtual doppelgangers are virtual representations of someone in a video game or simulation.
We will consider virtual characters that resemble their users and those that do not. Although the former usually has a more pronounced effect, each can significantly shape one’s behavior.
Jeremy N. Bailenson and Kathryn Y. Segovia wrote chapter 14 of the book Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. They examined various studies and experiments involving virtual doppelgangers.
First, they demonstrated that virtual doppelgangers can substantially influence one’s behavior. Furthermore, whether or not the doppelganger was of the participant or of someone else contributed a large role in behavior change.
The Experiment
In one experiment, one of three groups would look at a doppelganger that changed weight, another would look at an unchanging doppelganger, and the third would look at nothing at all. The participants would be instructed to perform three sets of arm exercises.
Afterward, they were told to take a break and stand still for two minutes. Once the two minutes were up, participants were given the option to perform additional voluntary exercises or end the experiment.
They found that participants in the first group, which was shown a changing doppelganger gaining weight, were more likely to perform more voluntary exercise than the other two groups.
Bailenson and Segovia acknowledged the objection that this could have happened even with a doppelganger not resembling the participants. After doing the experiment again but with random doppelgangers, they saw a considerable drop in the amount of voluntary exercise performed in group one.
Conclusions
This leads to some interesting conclusions. First, advertisers can use doppelgangers as powerful marketing agents. If experimenters can show a person their doppelganger gaining weight and get them to perform more exercise, then advertisers could use similar tactics to sell exercise equipment.
But second, doppelgangers can “show the rewards of exercise and proper eating habits.” These two conclusions have vastly different ethical implications that experts must work out in the coming years.
