4. The topic and idea of a double or Doppelganger has been central in this class since day one. Doubles were discussed in texts we read, viewed in various movies and countless Youtube clips, and embodied in Plurk. The act of living creates a trail, or double, that follows along behind us comprised of debris and footprints.
The idea of a photographic double is interesting in that it is only truly a double for an instant. The representation and the subject only exist together during the act of creation. A photograph is the capture of a moment in time, but only mirrors the subject for the length of the exposure. As the photograph is taken, the subject is still and the photo is dynamic. Afterwards, the subject is free to move as it wishes, but the photograph is eternally static. In a sense, the subject and the photo fell out of synch, one eternally changing, the other eternally the same. The term “negative” takes on much deeper meaning in this context, as the image is opposite in every way except for the moment of creation. When the image moves, the subject is still and vice versa; the photo forever frozen and the object forever changing. However, with black and white photography, if one were to superimpose a negative (the double) over a positive (the representation of the original), the end result is a solid black image, the dark from one filling in the light from the other. In photography, this is a non-issue as the negative and the positive only exist in the same place for an instant, but in Morel, this causes a sort of washing out of the fugitive, canceling out his life, literally adding of a negative to a positive to get zero.
Biological doubles are another matter entirely in that they are able to exist concurrently with the original. It is not necessary for one to negate the other, or to be at odds with the other. Identical twins, for example, often are very close; closer even than non-identical siblings. However, it seems most literature and pop-culture pits the double against the original, as in the splices in Ribofunk. Why is that? Perhaps real doubles can coexist because they are not exact duplicates. The “nature vs. nurture” argument comes into play here. Even if two individuals are exactly the same genetically, they differ on the larger scale. Their blood vessels don’t necessarily follow the same paths, their hair might be slightly different colors or lengths, one might end up liking music, the other might not. Their differences allow them to coexist. If a true, exact biological double were to exist, a literal Doppelganger, then perhaps conflict would be inevitable. In non-exact biological doubles, the conflict would then arise from social issues. This is true of any group, be it racial, economic, or class oriented. The splices were not rebelling because they were doubles, but because they were made to be slaves.
The time travel induced double, as illustrated in Primer is, also a perfect biological double. However, it goes farther in that both are actually the same individual. The interesting question isn’t who both of them are, but becomes which is a result of the other. For instance, if a person from an earlier timeline is influenced by themselves from a later timeline, the earlier one’s actions are a result of the later one’s. Therefore, the future person’s influence results in the actions of the past person, in effect becoming the original. In a way, neither is a copy of the other; both are Doppelgangers. The question of origin stops being important as neither is the original. Both are, in effect, doubles of the other. The Filth goes about the double in a different way; the hive-mind, the super-organism, both in the form of I-Life and the people aboard the Libertania. This is fascinating because by making all the members doubles of each other, a Doppelgang, the group becomes a new entity. In a way, the double becomes a single, each member becoming the average of the whole.
The Doppelganger, once a literary tool, is becoming a very real possibility in the modern age. Plurk, for example, records every post of every one of its members in the “timeline,” in effect creating a series of photographic doubles. While it is not yet a perfect representation, it is possible to travel to any point on that timeline and view what the member was doing at that time. In a way, it resembles a movie, with many still clips meshed together to show a representation of the whole. The image is two dimensional, and only shows the actions originally recorded (similar to a virtual Morel copy). Add to this the endless stream of cookies, browser histories, downloaded content, credit card statements, various permanent records, and the many other websites we contribute to on a daily basis (facebook, myspace, twitter, blogs, email servers) and the image starts to flesh out. Add to this the house, the room, the car, the belongings of a person (their physical records) and the image takes on even more depth. It is becoming possible to know a person by looking only at what they leave in their wake. In other words, their “footprints” are becoming full fledged doubles.
This can become problematic, however, when one considers that the internet allows for almost complete anonymity. It is possible, even easy, to have multiple personas, be it multiple email addresses or screen names or avatars. There are many instances of people preferring to use the names of their online Doppelgangers in the real world. For example, I am more familiar with Tony Prichard as nanotext, but it is possible that he has many other doubles, perhaps even some within the Plurk community. These identities are more similar to The Filth’s parapersonalities because we put them on only when we need them, temporarily becoming something or someone else.
Where the double is to be used also dramatically changes its personality. If a parapersonality were to be used on an “adult dating service” website, for example, the user would probably exaggerate their sexual prowess, shaping themselves to be more outgoing and desirable. On online games, players are often much more aggressive and assertive than they are outside that venue. “Analogue” doppelgangers, such as graffiti artists, are only represented in their art, using false names to avoid giving out any information into age, sex, race, features, etc. We shape our Doppelgangers to be useful, or to have more desirable characteristics. How long, though, before out digital doubles start to live lives of their own? The trend seems to be towards longer and longer “tails,” as technology grows to accommodate them. The more a person leaves behind, the easier it is to know them. The more a person is known, the better one can predict their actions. The more accurately one can predict actions, the more accurately they can be simulated. It is said that the entire human body is replaced every 6 years. How long before actual copies of ourselves are created from the dust we leave behind?
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