WEBVTT - The Doppelganger Network 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:04.280 Here, then I repeat and sum up. During the endless 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:08.080 train journey which took me from Eisenach to Berlin, across 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.760 the Thuringia and Saxony in Ruins, I noticed for the 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.960 first time, and I don't know how long that man 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:19.120 whom I call my double to simplify matters, or else 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:33.280 my twin, or again and less theatrically the traveler. Welcome 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:34.960 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:44.000 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, Welcome to Stuff to 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.519 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.120 Joe McCormick. And today I thought we might have a 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:55.080 discussion bringing together the seemingly disparate topics of familiarity, doppelgangers 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.160 or doubles, cap gross syndrome, and social media. And I 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.320 got the idea to talk about this today because a 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.320 few weeks ago I read this interesting article that had 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.360 a very intriguing central comparison or image. It was. It 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.840 was a thought provoking essay by the Stanford Nero Endo 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.839 chronologist Robert Sapulsky. It was originally published a few years 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.400 ago in Nautilus, and it was an article comparing the 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:23.520 effects of social media and and sort of the digital 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.000 world like Facebook, and you know, all that to a 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:31.760 psychological condition known as Capgrass syndrome. And so today I thought, 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.880 maybe we should start by explaining and discussing Sepulsky's comparison 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.760 and argument in that article and just see where we 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:41.960 go from there. Now, capgrass syndrome has definitely come up 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:44.240 on the show before. I don't know that we've done 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:48.639 like a designated show on the topic, but it'd certainly 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:50.720 come up. But either way, we we we do need to, 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.880 you know, provide a brief refresher on its history for 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.480 our listeners. Right. One of the important cases and which 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.279 Sapulsky discusses in his article, is the case of Madam 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.200 im This. This was a woman who lived in France 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:10.560 in the early twentieth century who had this persistent idea. 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:15.000 She was fixated on the idea that her loved ones, 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.880 including her husband, family members, people she knew, had been 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:24.240 replaced by doubles or doppel gangers who looked exactly like them. 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.359 So she would say, my husband is not really my husband. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.720 He's a man who looks exactly like my husband used 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.120 to and I don't know what happened to my real husband. 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.440 And this wasn't her only symptoms. She had a number 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:37.359 of symptoms. She believed that all kinds of things were 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.760 happening to UH, to her children. I mean, it's a 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:44.240 tragic story, but the underlying UH, the underlying cause of 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.919 what would lead someone to believe that people around them 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.440 were being replaced by doppel gangers or doubles is is 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.720 interesting to consider. And so the way Sepulsky in this 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.840 article characterizes the ultimate disconnect under lyon cap Grass syndrome 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.400 is that when the module of the brain used in 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:07.240 recognition of faces, specifically involving the fusiform gyrus in the brain, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:12.040 does cognitively recognize someone, but at the same time, the 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.320 different module of the brain that normally responds to this 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.799 recognition with the emotion that we call familiarity does not 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.920 kick in. And this brain function responsible for generating the 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:28.560 emotion of familiarity is what Sopolsky calls the extended face 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:33.200 processing system. It's quote a diffuse network including a variety 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:38.080 of cortical and limbic regions. And apparently, when we recognize 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.760 someone but we don't feel the necessary familiarity emotion that 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.560 follows when we normally recognize somebody, What the brain often 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.600 does when faced with this contradiction is to conclude that 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.320 someone has been replaced by a double. It looks like them, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.240 but this person doesn't feel familiar to me, thus they 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.480 must be a physically identical impostor. In the past, I 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.720 looked at a two thousand four paper from the Canadian 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.560 Journal of Psychiatry titled cap Grass Syndrome. A Review of 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:14.680 the neuro physiological correlates and presenting clinical features in cases 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.960 involving physical violence and UH. In this point out that 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.839 the delusional identification syndrome generally involves right brain anomalies linked 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.760 to a number of illnesses and neurological disorders, ranging from 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.640 UH schizo effective disorder and Alzheimer's disease to severe head injuries, 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:35.000 pituitary tumors and migraines. Even alcoholism can play a role. 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.040 You know, basically, each each of us has a visual 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.240 system and olympic system, and the ladder helps us to 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.920 generate and process emotions. Damage or disrupt communication between these 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.479 two systems, and suddenly a familiar face can in suspire, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.800 can inspire suspicion instead of comfort. Now, Fortunately, kept Grass 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.760 syndrome usually subsides with the successful treatment of the underlying 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.800 medical condition. You know, the tumor goes away, and thankfully 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.279 so does this. Uh. This, you know, suspicion and that 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.960 people are not what they seem to be. Uh. And 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.760 in some cases doctors can prescribe antipsychotic drugs to also 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.440 achieve the same effect. But you can easily see why 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.080 the idea of someone being replaced by a double or 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.600 a doppelganger would be such a captivating one. I mean, 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.279 it's something that, um, it's something that feels very perverted. 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.760 You know, it plays on our great vulnerabilities. And I 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.960 think it is not a coincidence that this kind of 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.400 thing has featured into some of the horror folklore of 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:32.000 the world. I mean, you think about the idea of 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.520 the changeling uh in in fairy folklore, where there was 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.600 this idea that where the fairy folk would come in 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.480 and replace someone you knew, often a child, but sometimes 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:42.400 like a husband or wife, or you know, someone you 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.719 knew with a fairy double who looked like them but 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:48.240 wasn't familiar to you, didn't act like them. And now 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.440 this is often described as something that people would use 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.400 to explain you know, maybe when somebody's behavior changed and 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.080 they didn't seem themselves. They think, oh, maybe they've been 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.360 replaced with a changeling uh or used to explain why 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.720 people might feel that their children weren't their own, or 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.520 something like that. But then also you have to wonder 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.160 if some kinds of neurological issues maybe at work here 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.719 in the minds of the people making the accusation that 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:17.120 someone is is a fairy. Yeah. And and this obviously, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.560 this idea in and of itself has played into some 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:21.800 so many myths throughout history and also continues to just 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.760 resound in our our popular media. Um. This is slightly 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.880 older work, of course, but Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.760 I mean that plays heavily on this trope, right, that 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.320 people are being replaced by something else, People that we 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.080 think we know we're not are not actually those individuals anymore. 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.559 It's been a huge yet you often find it also 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.760 not only in speculative fiction, but in literary fiction as well. Um. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:48.800 The quote that a right at the top of this 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.200 episode is from a two thousand and four novel UH 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:56.400 titled Repetition by one of my favorite French authors, Alan 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.000 Robe Guerrilla, who often this is one of This is 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:00.919 a trope that he often rule into his books, like 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.880 the idea of a double or some sort of an 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.080 alter ego. And this book in particularly been in particular 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.240 like starts off with a character on a train having 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.920 glimpsed his double once more. Yeah, it's a very unsettling image. Yeah, 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:18.000 the plurality of self. Right. Um well, and because so 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.160 there are double ways that it can be unsettling. There's 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:24.000 the idea that someone you know is replaced by a double. Obviously, 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.200 if you were to come to believe that through you know, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.920 whether you had like a brain injury or a neurological 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.240 condition that caused you to believe that, or I don't know, 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.520 if you just believed in fairies and thought maybe that 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.280 this was happening because your cultural conditioning. Either way, that 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.960 would be a terrifying thing. It's another thing entirely to 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:42.200 see it, to believe that you see another version of yourself, 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.400 you know, to think that you had your own double, 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.040 or there was a doppelganger of you. So I think 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.440 most of us are probably familiar with this, the the 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.360 the the idea of a doppelganger. Um. I you know, 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.680 I would love to say that I learned about doppelgangers 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.400 for the first time by either consulting a nice, you 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.680 know book on Germanic mythology, and certainly I read a 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:04.800 lot of different mythology books when I as a kid. Also, 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:06.840 I would love to say that my first encounter with 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:11.119 doppel gangers was a Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, because 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.360 there's another huge place that they're highly visible, as they've 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.280 long been a staple of Dungeons and Dragons, So they're 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:18.880 in there. Oh yeah, I mean it's a great way 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.920 to introduce a little uh, suspense and chaos into a campaign, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.520 right somebody you know an MPC that the character's trust 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.640 has been replaced, or adoppel gangers trying to or even 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.960 successfully replaces a member of the party. Uh. So you know, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.080 there's a lot of fun to be had with a doppelganger. Um, 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.000 but I have to admit that neither of these cases 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.160 is true. I heard about them initially in the nineties 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.240 via the Drew Barrymore movie that aired on the Sci 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.560 Fi Channel back when this is the old days, back 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.480 when before there were wise in sci Fi Wise inside 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.319 Oh Siffy you mean Siffy Yeah, Ciffy Channel. Yes, Um, 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.680 I remember next to nothing about this film, but it 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.319 was heavily promoted on the channel, and it introduced the 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.320 idea to me initially, and then I you know, followed 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.400 up by you know, asking around, Hey, Dad, what's a Doppelganger? 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.040 And then I looked it up, etcetera. Well, wait a minute, 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.840 so it was called Doppelganger the name of the movie. 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.319 That was, at least that was the title of the film, 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:17.400 as was promoted on Sci Fi Channel at the time. 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.280 Of course, it's often the case with films of this caliber. 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.120 They may have had multiple titles, and who knows, they 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.040 may have been promoted elsewhere under a different title. I 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.680 just looked it up. It's also known as Doppelganger colon 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.160 the Evil Within. Just to be clear, that was for 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:31.880 the people who didn't know what a doppel ganger was. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.679 Always got to have a colon, real title. So but here, 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.040 here's an interesting thing that I didn't realize until I 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.199 was researching this episode. I just kind of assumed, you know, obviously, 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.679 the doppelganger itself, the term is Germanic origins, and I 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.080 figured this is a creature that emerges from German folk traditions, 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.000 you know, Uh, you know, and in the same way 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.079 that that crampus came down from the mountains and uh 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.880 and alpine traditions. I just figured the doppelganger was just 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:03.200 a standard because the again, the idea of a mysterious double, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.880 either of self or other, is long established, but this 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.920 does not seem to be the case. Apparently, the word 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.640 doppelganger wasn't coined to know the eighteenth century, and it 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.040 was coined by German novelist Jean Paul in his seventeen 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:23.000 nine novel uh Sebenkas, in which the main character encounters 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.000 his own doppel ganger or double goer uh in the 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.160 the In this case, the dopel ganger convinces him to 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.600 fake his own death and start a new life. Uh. 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:34.640 And I had to I had to look in closer 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.880 on this. It's it's not as straightforward as I would 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.160 like it to be, where he's just like, hey, this 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.400 is the doppelganger. Apparently he invinced two similar words in 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.720 this book. He invinced the word doppeled ganger. Um, so 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.719 this would be the name for people who see themselves. 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.920 But then he also talks about doppel ganger as a 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.120 as a word for the second court when the second 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.160 course of a meal arrives along side the first course, 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.920 because ganga all means both you know, go or walker 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:11.000 as well as course in a meal, so technically doppelt 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:15.520 Ganger would be the mysterious double idea that he introduces. 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.240 And doppelganger itself is just a weird mishap of ordering 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.880 a multi course meal at a restaurant. But nobody's gonna 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.679 say doubled ganger, not anymore, no dafeld ganger. But this 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:29.839 is this is a good idea. Next time someone introduces 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.520 the dappel ganger in your dn D campaign, remind the 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.760 d M that that's a culinary term sort of. Uh. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.640 But anyway, the termines up resonating in German literature, and 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.320 it became popular in romantic horror literature in general by 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.160 the mid eighteen hundreds. So I think originally the the 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.920 this idea was always something scary or dangerous, right, Well, yeah, 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:56.360 they're not as much. It's seemingly in the original and 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.760 I didn't read the original German novel This is stress, 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:01.439 so you know, feel free to correct me if anyone 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.640 out there is more familiar with the with the literature 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.520 we're talking about here, but it certainly took on sinister 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:12.040 connotations within the literary tradition. But then I was reading 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.000 about the term on websters and the sinister connotations have 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:19.480 apparently dropped off somewhat in its English language usage, which 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.640 is surprising to me. But then again, I'm coming from 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.640 the standpoint of knowing them mostly through Dungeons and Dragons 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.800 and Horrible Drew Barrymore movies, so I'm probably not like 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:33.080 the the key candidate here. Um. I guess the other thing, too, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:35.640 is I really don't use the term outside of a 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:40.000 fantasy context. Like if I encounter someone who looks a 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.559 lot like someone I know, I don't say, oh, hey, 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.240 I saw your doppelganger today. I'm more like, hey, I 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.680 saw your Maybe I'll say evil twin, which is, you know, 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:53.199 another variation on this trope. Or I'll say oh, I 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.200 just I saw someone who looked just about like you, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.240 or I I'm in another city, I might say oh 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.880 I saw your Chicago you or whatever you know. So 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:03.920 that's the other thing. I just don't use doppelganger outside 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.920 of fantastic settings. Myself. I think most people just use 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.720 it to me and the look alike. Now, yeah, but 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:11.920 I guess I don't even use it that way. Like 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.600 for me, I just if I think of Doppelganger, I 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.960 think of something like that creature and Kroll which pretends 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:19.679 to be the Wizard, you know. I think something that 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.400 when you reveal it, it's a horrible, pallid creature with 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.720 jet black eyes. So if I'm not specifically talking about 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.240 like a monstrous scenario, I'm not gonna use Doppelganger. Okay, 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.040 that's just me. I also think that part of but 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.319 I think part of this whole idea of the sinister 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.840 connotations fading away, it might have to do with the 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.360 fact that if it is used by and large for 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.840 just somebody's double Like if someone is to say, hey, 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.800 I saw your doppelganger today at Showney's, they're not gonna, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.440 you know, there's there's not gonna be a creepy connotation 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.720 to that that sighting. We're not gonna say, oh my god, 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:54.920 I saw your doppelganger at Showny's and I was super 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.160 creeped out. I think we need to call somebody. No, 0:13:58.360 --> 0:13:59.920 you're you're just gonna it's just gonna be a point 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.199 whimsy And the other thing is that more than likely 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.959 it was a first glance situation, Like at first glance, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.240 I thought it was you. At second glance, I saw 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.000 that it was clearly another person and nothing to freak 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.160 out about. Well, I would be shocked though, if people 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.800 didn't still interpret this kind of thing is some kind 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.080 of weird omen or demon or whatever. Oh yeah, And 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:23.920 I was glancing around on the internet and there's still 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.760 plenty of that um And I think a large part 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.760 of that is, you know, as with all paranormal UH 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:39.080 experiences or supernatural explanations for mundane UH encounters, the supernatural 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.880 explanation is going to be more appealing. It's going you know, 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:44.760 it makes us feel more important, Like you want to 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.360 feel like you're in an Alan Rogue Relay novel and 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.040 you saw your mysterious double and it, you know, reveals 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.240 something about your you know, your your inner subconscious nature 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.840 or something, or that you you saw a ghost that 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:57.560 looked like you. I mean, all these are four more 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.800 interesting then, yeah, they're you know, there are a whole 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:01.320 bunch of people in the world, and it was bound 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:03.440 to happen sooner or later. But I saw somebody that 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.680 kind of looked like me, and had some more facial hair. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.400 The way that you look isn't all that unique. That's 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.360 like the worst news of all. Yeah, that's that's just 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.240 nothing exciting about that that story. You don't run rush 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.000 home to tell that to your significant other. But it 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:18.960 does bring up the question what are your chances of 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.320 running into your own unrelated double, or for that matter, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.560 running into an unrelated double with someone you know well. 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:30.280 According to ananimous Dr Tiggan Lucas quoted in the BBC 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.520 Future article, you're surprisingly likely to have a doppel game, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.320 which I think is slightly confusing title given the contents 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.200 of the article, but still uh said that the chances 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.640 of sharing just eight dimensions with someone else are less 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.440 than one in a trillion, and with a seven point 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:48.640 four billion people on the planet, it was only there 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.440 was only a one in one five chants that there's 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.960 a single pair of true doppel gagers. No, wait, what 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.080 are these dimensions you're talking about? Like eight facial dimensions? 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.040 Like if you you take you take facial features and 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:00.640 you divide them up into eight mentions and go to 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:05.320 match those up. So yeah, not like a spatial dimensions. 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.160 I'm not sure how that would work. Basically, the eight 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:13.400 sliders on your character creator right now. Most of the time, 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.840 though again we're not talking about exact doubles. You know, generally, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.160 these are just faces that are similar to our own 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.640 or similar to someone we know. When we focus on 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.080 the familiarity in a way that may be tied to 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.400 a means of identifying close kin uh, you know, in 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.120 early human history, like that's what this recognition system is, 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.800 perhaps four um and you know, think again about how 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.480 generally how you know, generally, doubles are kind of a 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.840 first glance thing. The similarities may be jarring, but the 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:45.280 differences will be pronounced as well. Now, the thing is, 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:47.960 there are so many humans on the planet now, and 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.240 we live in you know, closer confines. In many situations, 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.720 seeing familiar features, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's any 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:59.360 shared genetic heritage between two given individuals, you know, except 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.400 in the sense that all humans share most in the 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.280 grander yeah, and the grander scheme, yes, but yeah, if 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.000 you just if you're in another city you see someone 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:07.760 who looks kind of like you, or looks kind of 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.560 like a friend, it doesn't mean they're your long last 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.399 cousin or their long last cousin. Of an of your friend. 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.199 But it's a situation where we kind of broke the 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.760 system through population growth in the birth of cities and 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.840 and self facial recognition and facial recognition abilities. They're also 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.480 going to vary from person to person, so your doppelganger 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.480 alarms just may not be as easy to set off 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.240 as someone else's. So anyway, that's that's doppel gangers in 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:38.960 a nutshell, both the origin of the term, but then 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.240 a little bit about the science and the potent that 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.560 the potentiality of seeing a double or near double uh 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.679 somewhere in the world. But thinking about what is at 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.760 work with the the erroneous detection of doubles in cop 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.720 cross syndrome, uh is I guess maybe what we should 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:02.119 get back to when we come back after a break. Alright, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.800 we're back and it's really us. We weren't replaced by 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.639 strange creatures from the Monster Manual over the course of 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.800 the advertisement. No, we're here, it's really us and we're 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.280 going to continue our exploration. You know, I wanted to 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.840 answer that with the body snatchers noise, but I don't 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:17.560 know if I can make it exactly from the Donald 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.119 Sutherland version, Yeah, which is a great version by I 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.120 still haven't seen that. I've only seen the old black 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:24.840 and white original. Oh, the Donald Sutherland one is great. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:30.120 He's got Lambert from Alien, it's got Jeff Goldblum, He's 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.720 he's feisty. It's got oh and it's got from another 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:36.840 sci fi classic. It's got what's his name who played 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:41.320 spok Leonard n Yeah, Leonard Nimoy is fantastic in it. 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.040 I think it's his it's his great performance. Well, that's 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.199 a great cast. But the nineteen fifty six original had 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:49.800 had had Kevin McCarthy in the lead role. It was terrific. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.560 You also had Carol and Jones, who had played more 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.399 Tisha on The Adams Family. Cool. Yeah, but also it 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.399 was it was just black and white, and it just 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.560 it really, at least the version I saw of it, 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.880 like the darkness felt just so murky and uh and 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.400 dirty somehow, Like it was just a very nightmare inducing 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.199 film when I saw it as a kid. Yeah, the 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.040 paranoid visual vibe, it's got a it's got a kind 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.919 of a communist infiltration thing. Oh, definitely, definitely. That's a 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.560 that's a very strong element of it, which just goes 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.720 to show like the ideas of like why this concept 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.119 of of doubles resonates so because you can apply it 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.680 to all these other scenarios social and political. Well, yeah, 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.760 I mean it's a common thing for people to say 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:34.520 when they don't literally think that someone they know has 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.720 been physically bodily replaced by a by a supernatural double, 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.600 they might often think, I don't know this person anymore. 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:43.800 I mean it's a similar like, you know, they've been 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.480 replaced with somebody, somebody replaced you with a different person. Yeah, 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.040 Like it just would. Really, you just found out you're 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.960 getting to know them better, You found out something about 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.520 them you didn't know before, and now you think that 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.520 they're like a different being entirely. And now it's just 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.480 because yeah, it turns out that they were maybe communists 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.639 or like a different football team. Well, to be fair, also, 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.399 it could be a case of um, you know, people 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.960 over emphasizing disposition all traits, thinking that people thinking that 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.800 they should expect their loved ones to be incredibly consistent 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.680 and trait predictable, when in fact people are inconsistent. That 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:23.280 it depends on the circumstances how they behave. Maybe sometimes 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.240 you are used to seeing someone only in one type 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.040 of context, maybe used to only seeing them at work, 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.200 and then when you see them in a different context, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:32.960 when you see them, you know, out with their friends 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:35.240 or with their family, they seem like a totally different 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.359 person to you. It can be jarring when you see 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:40.119 those differences, and yet they're there for almost all of us, 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:42.800 almost none of us, like really behave the same way 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.800 in all contexts. Well, let's talk about the about those contexts, 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.240 especially those social contexts. Yeah, so I want to come 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:52.280 back to So we've talked about doppelgangers a bit and 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:55.760 the idea of doubles and and familiarity and recognition, But 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:57.720 I want to come back to uh that article I 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.960 mentioned at the beginning where Robert sapulse Key makes this 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:06.400 comparison between what is made clear about the brain basis 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.680 of familiarity with cop Cross syndrome and the ways that 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:15.600 technology is changing our social relationships. So in in Sapolski's words, 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.679 Capcross syndrome makes clear the brain basis for quote, the 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.000 differences between the thoughts that give rise to recognition. Remember 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.720 recognition as cognitive You see somebody and you cognitively know 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:31.040 who they are, and the feelings that give rise to familiarity. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:33.800 That's the emotion that says, yes, I know this person, 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:38.520 they're different things. And Sapolsky's main point is quote, these 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.239 functional fault lines in the social brain, when coupled with 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.639 advances in the online world, have given rise to the 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:50.280 contemporary Facebook generation. They have made cop cross syndrome a 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.760 window on our culture and minds today where nothing is 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.080 quite recognizable but everything seems familiar. And I would actually 0:21:58.080 --> 0:21:59.960