WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Doppelganger Network 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.480 Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:10.119 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:12.680 it's Saturday. Time to dive into the vault. This time 0:00:12.680 --> 0:00:17.800 we're bringing you an episode that originally aired on May nineteen. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.840 This one was called The Doppelganger Network. Yeah, this one's 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:23.840 pretty fun because, you know, obviously we're going to get 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.280 into the idea of a doppel Ganga and what it 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.280 is and fairy impostures and so forth. But but then 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.960 we're getting into something a lot deeper, something that that 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.159 that really is going to play into a lot of 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:42.360 our every day online interactions. So let's jump right in here. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:46.280 Then I repeat and some up. During the Endless train journey, 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.040 which took me from Eisenach to Berlin, across the Thuringia 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.640 and Saxony in Ruins, I noticed for the first time, 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.560 and I don't know how long that man whom I 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:01.240 call my double to simplify matters, or else my twin 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:14.840 or again unless theatrically the traveler. Welcome to Stuff to 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:16.960 Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heeart Radios has 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:25.800 to works. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.720 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, And 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.639 today I thought we might have a discussion bringing together 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:38.319 the seemingly disparate topics of familiarity, doppelgangers or doubles, cap 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.880 gross syndrome, and social media. And I got the idea 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:44.120 to talk about this today because a few weeks ago 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:48.240 I read this interesting article that had a very intriguing 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.040 central comparison or image it was. It was a thought 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.840 provoking essay by the Stanford neuro endo chronologist Robert Sapulski. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.160 It was originally published a few years ago in Nautilus, 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.400 and it was an article pairing the effects of social 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.000 media and and sort of the digital world like Facebook 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.919 and you know, all that to a psychological condition known 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.200 as cap gross syndrome. And so today I thought, maybe 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.200 we should start by explaining and discussing Sepulsky's comparison and 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.080 argument in that article and just see where we go 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.240 from there. Now, capgrass syndrome has definitely come up on 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.800 the show before. I don't know that we've done like 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:30.160 a designated show on the topic, but it'd certainly come up. 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.280 But either way, we we we do need to, you know, 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.040 provide a brief refresher on its history for our listeners right. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.880 One of the important cases and which Sapulsky discusses in 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.400 his article is the case of Madam im This. This 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.600 was a woman who lived in France in the early 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:53.279 twentieth century who had this persistent idea. She was fixated 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:57.440 on the idea that her loved ones, including her husband 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:01.200 and family members, people she knew, had been replaced by 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.639 doubles or doppel gangers who looked exactly like them. So 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.560 she would say, my husband is not really my husband. 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.919 He's a man who looks exactly like my husband used 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.320 to and I don't know what happened to my real husband. 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.640 And this wasn't her only symptoms. She had a number 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.560 of symptoms. She believed that all kinds of things were 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:20.960 happening to UH, to her children. I mean, it's a 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:25.440 tragic story, but the underlying UH, the underlying cause of 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.120 what would lead someone to believe that people around them 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.640 were being replaced by doppel gangers or doubles is is 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.920 interesting to consider. And so the way Sepulsky in this 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.040 article characterizes the ultimate disconnect under lyon cap Grass syndrome 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.600 is that when the module of the brain used in 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:48.160 recognition of faces, specifically involving the fusiform gyrus in the 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.880 brain does cognitively recognize someone, but at the same time, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.320 the different module of the brain that normally responds to 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.720 this recognition with the emotion that we call familiarity does 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.960 not kick in. And this brain function responsible for generating 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:09.200 the emotion of familiarity is what Sopolski calls the extended 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.800 face processing system. It's quote a diffuse network including a 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.320 variety of cortical and limbic regions. And apparently, when we 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:23.760 recognize someone but we don't feel the necessary familiarity emotion 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.359 that follows when we normally recognize somebody, what the brain 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.520 often does when faced with this contradiction is to conclude 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.000 that someone has been replaced by a double. It looks 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.320 like them, but this person doesn't feel familiar to me, 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:43.480 thus they must be a physically identical impostor. In the past, 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.520 I looked at a two thousand four paper from the 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.760 Canadian Journal of Psychiatry titled Capgras Syndrome. A Review of 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:55.880 the neuro physiological correlates and presenting clinical features in cases 0:04:55.920 --> 0:05:00.120 involving physical violence and uh In this that when the 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:05.039 delusional identification syndrome generally involves right brain. Anomally is linked 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.920 to a number of illnesses and neurological disorders, ranging from 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.840 UH schizo effective disorder and Alzheimer's disease to severe head injuries, 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.200 pituitary tumors, and migraines. Even alcoholism can play a role. 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.240 You know, basically, each each of us has a visual 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.440 system and olympic system, and the ladder helps us to 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.120 generate and process emotions. Damage or disrupt communication between these 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.880 two systems, and suddenly a familiar face can suspire, can 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:32.400 inspire suspicion instead of comfort. Now, Fortunately, kept grass syndrome 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.839 usually subsides with the successful treatment of the underlying medical condition. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.400 You know, the tumor goes away, and thankfully so does this. Uh. This, 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.960 you know, suspicion that people are not what they seem 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.920 to be. Uh. And in some cases doctors can prescribe 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.279 antipsychotic drugs to also achieve the same effect. But you 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:54.480 can easily see why the idea of someone being replaced 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.520 by a double or doppelganger would be such a captivating one. 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.480 I mean, it's something that it's something that feels very perverted, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.960 you know, it plays on our great vulnerabilities. And I 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.160 think it is not a coincidence that this kind of 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.600 thing has featured into some of the horror folklore of 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:13.200 the world. I mean, you think about the idea of 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.719 the changeling uh in in fairy folklore, where there was 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:18.800 this idea that where the fairy folk would come in 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.680 and replace someone you knew, often a child, but sometimes 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.600 like a husband or wife, or you know, someone you 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.919 knew with a fairy double who looked like them but 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.440 wasn't familiar to you, didn't act like them. And now 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.640 this is often described as something that people would use 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.599 to explain you know, maybe when somebody's behavior changed and 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:39.280 they didn't seem themselves, they think, oh, maybe they've been 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.800 replaced with a changeling, or used to explain why people 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.520 might feel that their children weren't their own, or something 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:47.920 like that. But then also you have to wonder if 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.520 some kinds of neurological issues maybe at work here in 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.360 the minds of the people making the accusation that someone 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.480 is is a fairy. Yeah, and this is obviously this 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.159 idea in and not itself has played into some so 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.880 many myths throughout history and also continues to just resound 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.520 in our our popular media. Um. This is slightly older work, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.720 of course, but Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.360 mean that plays heavily on this trope, right, that people 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.760 are being replaced by something else, People that we think 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.320 we know we're not are not actually those individuals anymore. 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.320 It's been a huge You often find it also not 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.960 only in speculative fiction, but in literary fiction as well. Um. 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.000 The quote that a right at the top of this 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:34.200 episode is from a two thousand and four novel titled 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.120 Repetition by one of my favorite French authors, Alan robue Gerle, 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:40.559 who often this is one of This is a trope 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.680 that he often threw into his books, like the idea 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.800 of a double or some sort of an alter ego, 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:48.800 and this book in particular been in particular like starts 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.000 off with a character on a train having glimpsed his 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.160 double once more. Yeah, it's a very unsettling image. Yeah, 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:59.160 the plurality of self right. Um, well, and because so 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.080 they are double way so that it can be unsettling. 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:04.240 There's the idea that someone you know is replaced by 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.520 a double. Obviously, if you were to come to believe 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.600 that through you know, whether you had like a brain 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.560 injury or a neurological condition that caused you to believe that, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:13.880 or I don't know, if you just believed in fairies 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.840 and thought maybe that this was happening because your cultural conditioning. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.240 Either way, that would be a terrifying thing. It's another 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.840 thing entirely to see it, to believe that you see 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.400 another version of yourself, you know, to think that you 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.480 had your own double or there was a doppelganger of you. 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.080 So I think most of us are probably familiar with this, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.560 the the the idea of a doppelganger. Um. I you know, 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.880 I would love to say that I learned about doppelgangers 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.720 for the first time by either consulting a nice, you know, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.880 book on Germanic mythology, and certainly I I read a 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.040 lot of different mythology books and as a kid. Also, 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.040 I would love to say that my first encounter with 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.480 doppelgangers was a Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, because it's 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.800 another huge place that they're highly visible, as they've long 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.800 been a staple of Dungeons and Dragons, so they're in there. 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:00.640 Oh yeah, I mean, it's a great way to introduce 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.400 a little um, suspense and chaos into a campaign, Right, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.840 somebody you know an MPC that the character's trust has 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.840 been replaced, or a doppelganger is trying to or even 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:14.160 successfully replaces a member of the party. Uh. So you know, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.280 there's a lot of fun to be had with a doppelganger. Um, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.200 but I have to admit that neither of these cases 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.280 is true. I heard about them initially in the ninety 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.440 via the Drew Barrymore movie that aired on the Sci 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.800 Fi Channel back when this is the old days, back 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:32.680 when before there were wise in sci Fi Wise inside. 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.520 Ohh Siffy you mean Siffy Yeah, Siffy Channel. Yes. Um, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:38.880 I remember next to nothing about this film, but it 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.520 was heavily promoted on the channel, and it introduced the 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.520 idea to me initially, and then I you know, followed 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.600 up by you know, asking around, Hey, Dad, what's a doppelganger? 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.320 And then I looked it up, etcetera. Well, wait a minute, 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.040 so it was called Doppelgangers the name of the movie. 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.520 That was at least that was the title if the film, 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:58.600 as was promoted on Sci Fi Channel at the time. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.000 So of course it often the case, with films of 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.240 this caliber, they may have had multiple titles, and who knows, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.079 they may have been promoted elsewhere under a different title. 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.359 I just looked it up. It's also known as doppelgang 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.120 or colon the evil within. Just to be clear, that 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:12.559 was for the people who didn't know what a doppel 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.400 ganger was. Always got to have a colon, real title. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.240 So but here here's an interesting thing that I didn't 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.640 realize until I was researching this episode. I just kind 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.280 of assumed, you know, obviously, the doppel ganger itself, the 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.600 term is Germanic origins, and I figured this is a 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:33.160 creature that emerges from German folk traditions, you know, uh, 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.360 you know, and in the same way that that crampus 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.640 came down from the mountains and uh an alpine traditions. 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.199 I just figured the doppelganger was just a standard and 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.920 because the again, the idea of a mysterious double, either 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.319 of self or other, is long established, but this does 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.000 not seem to be the case. Apparently, the word doppelganger 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.960 wasn't coined to know the eighteenth century, and it was 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:58.440 coined by German novelist Jean Paul in his seventeen nine 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:04.199 novel Uh Seben Cos, in which the main character encounters 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.200 his own doppel ganger or double goer uh in the 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.560 In this case, the doupel ganger convinces him to fake 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.960 his own death and start a new life. Uh. And 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.080 I had to I had to look in closer on this. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.360 It's it's not as straightforward as I would like it 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.240 to be, where he's just like, hey, this is the doppelganger. 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.640 Apparently he invents two similar words in this book. He 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.520 invinced the word doppeled ganger. Um, so this would be 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.200 the name for people who see themselves. But then he 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.640 also talks about doppel ganger as a as a word 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:39.760 for the second course when the second course of a 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.640 meal arrives alongside the first course, because gang or all 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.719 means both you know, go or walker as well as 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:53.400 course in a meal. So technically doppeled ganger would be 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:58.120 the mysterious double idea that he introduces. And doppelganger itself 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.199 is just a weird mishap of ordering a multi course 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:05.160 meal at a restaurant. But nobody's gonna say doubled ganger, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.200 not anymore, No duffeld ganger. But this is this is 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.800 a good idea. Next time someone introduces the daffel ganger 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.040 in your dn D campaign, remind the d M that 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:19.079 that's a culinary term sort of. Uh. But anyway, the 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.720 termines up resonating in German literature, and it became popular 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.000 in romantic horror literature in general by the mid eighteen hundreds. 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:31.480 So I think originally the the this idea was always 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:36.040 something scary or dangerous, right, Well, yeah, they're not as much. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.440 It's seemingly in the original And I didn't read the 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.640 original German novel This is Stress, so you know, feel 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.160 free to correct me if anyone out there is more 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.040 familiar with the with the literature we're talking about here. 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:51.640 But it certainly took on sinister connotations within the literary tradition. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.599 But then I was reading about the term on websters 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.000 and the sinister connotations have apparently dropped off somewhat in 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.640 its English language usage, which is surprising to me. But 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.360 then again, I'm coming from the standpoint of knowing them 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.360 mostly through Dungeons and Dragons and Horrible Drew Barrymore movies, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.520 so I'm probably not like the the key candidate here. Um, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.160 I guess the other thing, too, is I really don't 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.640 use the term outside of a fantasy context. Like if 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:23.079 I encounter someone who looks a lot like someone I know, 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.080 I don't say, oh, hey, I saw your doppelganger today. 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.640 I'm more like, hey I saw your Maybe I'll say 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.600 evil twin, which is, you know, another variation on this trope. 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:35.440 Or I'll say, oh, I just I saw someone who 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:37.720 looked just about like you, Or I I'm in another city, 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.080 I might say, oh I saw your Chicago you or whatever. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:43.720 You know. So that's the other thing. I just don't 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.400 use doppelganger outside of fantastic settings myself. I think most 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.800 people just use it to me and they look alike. Now, Yeah, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:52.720 but I guess I don't even use it that way. 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.640 Like for me, I just if I think of doppelganger, 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.800 I think of something like that creature and Kroll which 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:00.760 pretends to be the Wizard, you know. I think something 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.439 that when you reveal it, it's a horrible, pallid creature 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.600 with jet black eyes. So if I'm not specifically talking 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.440 about like a monstrous scenario, I'm not gonna use a doppelganger. Okay, 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.240 that's just me. I also think that part of but 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.520 I think part of this whole idea of the sinister 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.040 connotations fading away, It might have to do with the 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.560 fact that if it is used by and large for 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.040 just somebody's double Like if someone is to say, hey, 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:28.000 I saw your doppelganger today at Showny's, they're not gonna 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.640 you know, there's there's not gonna be a creepy connotation 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.920 to that that sighting. We're not gonna say, oh my god, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.120 I saw your doppelganger at Showny's and I was super 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.360 creeped out. I think we need to call somebody. No, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:41.160 you're You're just gonna it's just gonna be a point 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.800 of whimsy. And the other thing is that more than 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.160 likely it was a first glance situation, like at first glance, 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.440 I thought it was you. At second glance, I saw 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.200 that it was clearly another person and nothing to freak 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.360 out about. Well, I would be shocked though, if people 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.960 didn't still interpret this kind of thing is some kind 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.320 a weird omen or demon or whatever. Oh yeah, And 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:05.120 I was glancing around on the internet and there's still 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.920 plenty of that. Um And I think a large part 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.040 of that is, you know, as with all paranormal UH 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:20.280 experiences or supernatural explanations for mundane UH encounters, the supernatural 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.080 explanation is going to be more appealing. It's going, you know, 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.960 it makes us feel more important, Like you want to 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.560 feel like you're in an island rogue relea novel and 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.240 you saw your mysterious double and it, you know, reveals 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.440 something about your you know, your your inner subconscious nature 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.040 or something, or that you you saw a ghost that 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:38.760 looked like you. I mean, all these are four more 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.000 interesting than Yeah, they're you know, there are a whole 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:42.520 bunch of people in the world, and it was bound 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.640 to happen sooner or later. But I saw somebody that 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:46.880 kind of looked like me and had some more facial hair. 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.600 The way that you look isn't all that unique. That's 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.560 like the worst news of all. Yeah, that's that's just 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.400 nothing exciting about that. That story. You don't run rush 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.200 home to tell that to your significant other. But it 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.080 does bring up the question, what are your chance is 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.520 of running into your own unrelated double, or for that matter, 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.760 running into an unrelated double with someone you know well. 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:11.440 According to ananimous Dr Tiggan Lucas quoted in the BBC 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.720 future article, you're surprisingly likely to have a doppel game, 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.520 which I think is slightly confusing title given the contents 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.400 of the article, but still uh said that the chances 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.840 of sharing just eight dimensions with someone else are less 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.600 than one in a trillion, and with a seven point 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:29.840 four billion people on the planet, it was only there 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.640 was only a one in on five chants that there's 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.160 a single pair of true doppel gangers. The wait, what 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.280 are these dimensions you're talking about? Like eight facial dimensions? 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.320 Like if you take you take facial features and you 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.120 divide them up into eight dimensions and go to mac 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.520 match those up. So yeah, not like eight spatial dimensions. 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.040 I'm not sure how that would work. Okay, basically the 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:54.240 eight sliders on your character creator right now most of 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:57.160 the time, though again we're not talking about exact doubles. 0:16:57.440 --> 0:16:59.720 You know, generally, these are just faces that are similar 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.160 to our own or similar to someone we know when 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.400 we focus on the familiarity in a way that may 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.000 be tied to a means of identifying close skin. Uh, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:10.760 you know, in early human history, like that's what this 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:15.120 recognition system is perhaps four um and you know, think 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.199 again about how generally, how you know, generally doubles are 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.280 kind of a first glance thing. The similarities may be jarring, 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:26.159 but the differences will be pronounced as well. Now, the 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.280 thing is, there are so many humans on the planet 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.560 now and we live in you know, closer confines in 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.480 many situations, seeing familiar features, it doesn't necessarily mean that 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:40.080 there's any shared genetic heritage between two given individuals, you know, 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.480 except in the sense that all humans share mostly in 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.360 the grander yeah, and the grander scheme. Yes, but yeah, 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.000 if you just if you're in another city you see 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:48.919 someone who looks kind of like you or looks kind 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.480 of like a friend, it doesn't mean their your long 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.600 last cousin or their long last cousin of an your friend. 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.399 But it's a situation where we kind of broke the 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.480 system through population growth in the birth of cities and 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:06.040 and self facial recognition and facial recognition abilities. They're also 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.360 going to vary from person to person, so your doppel 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.480 ganger alarms just may not be as easy to set 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.800 off as someone else's. So anyway, that's that's doppel ganger's 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.800 in a nutshell, both the origin of the term, but 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.959 then a little bit about the the science and the 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.840 potent that the potentiality of seeing a double or near 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.400 double uh somewhere in the world. But thinking about what 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.480 is at work with the the erroneous detection of doubles 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.560 in cop Cross syndrome, UH is I guess maybe what 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.920 we should get back to when we come back after 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:44.600 a break. All Right, we're back and it's really us. 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.040 We weren't replaced by strange creatures from the Monster Manual 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.920 over the course of the advertisement. Now we're here, it's 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:54.000 really us and we're going to continue our exploration. You know. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.359 I wanted to answer that with the body snatchers noise, 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.240 but I don't know if I can make it exactly 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.080 from the Donald Sutherland version, which is a great version 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.080 by ill haven't seen that. I've only seen the old 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.040 black and white original. Oh, the Donald Sutherland one is great. 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:11.320 He's got Lambert from Alien, it's got Jeff Goldblum, He's 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.920 he's feisty. It's got oh and it's got from another 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.040 sci fi classic. It's got what's his name who played 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:22.720 spok Literary, Yeah, Literary. Nimoy is fantastic in it. I 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.320 think it's his it's his great performance. Well, that's a 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.600 great cast, but the nineteen fifty six original had had 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:31.000 had Kevin McCarthy in the lead role. He was terrific. 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.760 You also had Carol and Jones, who had played more 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:37.560 Tisha on The Adams Family. Oh cool. Yeah, But also 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.160 it was just black and white and it just it really, 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.040 at least the version I saw of it, like the 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:47.160 darkness felt just so murky and uh and dirty somehow, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.040 Like it was just a very nightmare inducing film when 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:51.920 I saw it as a kid. You know, the paranoid 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.359 visual vibe. It's got a it's got a kind of 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.360 a communist infiltration thing. Oh, definitely, definitely, that's a that's 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:00.879 a very strong element of it, which just goes to 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.400 show like the ideas of like why this concept of 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.439 of doubles resonates so because you're can apply it to 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.960 all these other scenarios social and political. Well yeah, I 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.240 mean it's a common thing for people to say when 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.040 they don't literally think that someone they know has been 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:20.600 physically bodily replaced by a by a supernatural double, they 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.080 might often think, I don't know this person anymore. I 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.520 mean it's a similar like, you know, they've been replaced 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.680 with somebody, somebody replaced you with a different person. Yeah, 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.239 like so just would really you just found out you're 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.160 getting to know them better, You found not something about 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.719 them you didn't know before, and now you think that 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.760 they're like a different being entirely, and now it's just 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:44.040 because it turns out that they were maybe communists or 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.840 like a different football team. Well, to be fair, also, 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.600 it could be a case of um, you know, people 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:54.159 over emphasizing disposition a traits thinking that people thinking that 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.000 they should expect their loved ones to be incredibly consistent 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.000 and trait predictable, when in fact people inconsistent that it 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.680 depends on the circumstances how they behave. Maybe sometimes you 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.000 are used to seeing someone only in one type of context, 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.719 maybe used to only seeing them at work, and then 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:12.679 when you see them in a different context, when you 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.480 see them, you know, out with their friends or with 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:16.960 their family, they seem like a totally different person to you. 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:19.359 It can be jarring when you see those differences, and 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:21.920 yet they're there for almost all of us, almost none 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.479 of us, like really behave the same way in all contexts. Well, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:30.399 let's talk about the about those contexts, especially the social contexts. Yeah, 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.320 so I want to come back to So we've talked 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.880 about doppelgangers a bit and the idea of doubles and 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.680 and familiarity and recognition. But I want to come back 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.280 to uh that article I mentioned at the beginning where 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:45.639 Robert Sapolski makes this comparison between what is made clear 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.880 about the brain basis of familiarity with cop Cross syndrome 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:55.159 and the ways that technology is changing our social relationships. 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.399 So in in Sapolski's words, Capcross syndrome makes clear the 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:02.399 brain basis for quote, the offerences between the thoughts that 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.920