The Universe Revealed

Do we have a doppelgänger?

Do we have a doppelgänger?

The word doppelgänger is from the German (double walker) and means a look-alike or double. This term has been used in fiction and folklore. It's basically a mythological concept that goes back to ancient times.

For the most part, I'm sure that many people have seen someone that looks like them. I have, and it's frightening and amazing at the same time. For the most part this is a doppelgänger. However, is it possible for someone to be exactly like us? Or, will our double look-alike be different?

In a first season Star Trek episode, 'The Enemy Within,' Captain Kirk is split into two identical individuals during a transport malfunction. One is good and the other one is evil. They are identical in appearance and this confuses the crew. After some harrowing moments, Kirk's good and bad parts are combined to restore him to his original personality. What it proved is that a good leader needs both elements in his personality. If he has no evil, he'll be timid and afraid. If he's totally evil, he'll be merciless and violent. I point this out because it is an example of a doppelgänger effect.

A duplicate of a person could be considered a clone. Cloning is a biological process of creating an identical individual. This has been done with animals (Dolly the Sheep), but could it be accomplished with a human, and if it were, would this clone be exactly the same? That's a good question because it hasn't been done yet, at least not officially. Cloning a human is against the law in most places. They've come close to doing this with humans. The fact is that the human would look the same but wouldn't be the same as the original. They would be more like twins. Would that constitute a doppelgänger?

There have been many cases of famous people reporting doppelgängers, including: Guy de Maupassant, the French novelist; John Donne, the 16th century English poet; Percy Bysshe Shelly, the great English poet; Queen Elizabeth I; and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 18th century German poet. Most of these encounters would be considered paranormal events. In some cases it was a ghost.

Of course this concept has been exploited in literature, movies and anywhere else that generates revenue. A movie by that title in 1993 starred Drew Barrymore, George Newbern and Dennis Christopher. There's even a comic superhero by that name. In this case it's an evil Spider-Man duplicate.

Frankly, the idea has been blown out of proportion. In most cases a doppelgänger is considered an evil twin. That's creepy!

Thanks for reading.