Real Doppelgangers

Scott Kelly was a man who spent a year in a space station at the Earths orbit. What was extra interesting was that he had a twin brother, Mark. The two continue to look identical, even though the laws of relativity now dictate that one is now older than the other. The only truly outstanding permanent changes to Scott were that his telomeres(which decide which chromosomes fuse together) became longer. Yet on the outside, the two are twins. We understand that they are fundamentally different people, and that they always were. Scott continued to work for NASA while Mark retired and became a senator, the two have their own children and families and homes. But their bodies are so similar that to be moved through time and space, we still see them as identical twins. What if one twin sees the grand canyon and the other doesn’t? They’re technically different now, but we call them identical because they look the same. What if one wears glasses and a mustache? Now they look different, but they’re still identical. What if the two live their lives separate from each other, in completely different settings, and grow into their own unique people. If they wear the same clothes I still can’t tell them apart. True identicalness is impossible, but we have this weird piece of it that is undeniable. We don’t have Dorian’s Portrait, but we have disorders and conditions that make us feel like we’re two different people. We don’t have doppelgängers, but we have identical twins. We don’t have automatons, but we have mannequins. It’s not perfect, but it’s real!