# Identical persons in identical rooms **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 31, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893 "2010-12-31T00:15:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/1 "2010-12-31T00:15:12Z")
Suppose that Star Trek transporter technology is created and perfected. The transporter is then used to create two identical beings into identical rooms into the exact same locations in their respective rooms. Do you believe that their actions will diverge slowly, quickly or not at all? Why or why not? My immediate instinct is to say that they will diverge quickly but I’m having difficulty articulating why. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/2 "2010-12-31T00:57:08Z")
No two systems can be identical since the systems are composed of quantum entities, and whose quantum states are not deterministically defined. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/3 "2010-12-31T01:09:07Z")
Which of course is where the “Heisenberg Compensators” come into play. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/4 "2010-12-31T01:17:33Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > Suppose that Star Trek transporter technology is created and perfected. The transporter is then used to create two identical beings into identical rooms into the exact same locations in their respective rooms. Do you believe that their actions will diverge slowly, quickly or not at all? Why or why not? > > My immediate instinct is to say that they will diverge quickly but I’m having difficulty articulating why. Are they allowed to leave the rooms before your question is answered? ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/5 "2010-12-31T02:09:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No two systems can be identical since the systems are composed of quantum entities, and whose quantum states are not deterministically defined. My first inclination is to say “Don’t fight the hypothetical”. Barring that, do you believe that these quantum differences would be enough to be noticeable at a macro level? > [@Canadjun](#): > > Are they allowed to leave the rooms before your question is answered? No. They will not leave the room nor interact with anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/6 "2010-12-31T02:14:47Z")
They’ll diverge pretty quickly I think since the brain and body are full of chaotic systems. Tiny random differences due to everything from quantum effects on up will be rapidly amplified until they affect observable behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/7 "2010-12-31T12:01:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > They’ll diverge pretty quickly I think since the brain and body are full of chaotic systems. Tiny random differences due to everything from quantum effects on up will be rapidly amplified until they affect observable behavior. Concur, although there is probably also a degree to which the behaviour of the two different persons will be the same just because it can be generalised. They might both start to want a grilled cheese sandwich at around half past eleven, for example. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/8 "2010-12-31T13:08:15Z")
They’ll diverge quickly in actions because everything we do is a choice. Do we sit down, or walk around? Do we eat or drink something when feeling a little hungry? I’m bored and stuck in this room, do I pace it and count the laps or count the holes in the ceiling tiles? Say that I poop every day at noon, do it right at noon or can it wait awhile? So yes, after the screams and begging to be let out are done, (but before asphyxiation sets in) I think the behavior will vary wildly. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/9 "2010-12-31T13:29:53Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > They’ll diverge quickly in actions because everything we do is a choice. But where is that choice rooted? Or in other words, why would yousub[/sub] make a different choice to yousub[/sub], with no external reason so to do? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Amazing_Hanna)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/10 "2010-12-31T14:38:25Z")
There really is no way of answering this question without doing the experiment. My hunch, but it’s really just a hunch, is that if you gave the to clones a piece of paper to draw on, their drawings would not come out _exactly_, stroke-by-stroke, the same way, although they would of probably have a similar style. But maybe they would be exactly the same, and then I would have to accept that the role played by chance is very small in our universe, if chance even exists, and that free will is an illusion. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/11 "2010-12-31T17:35:48Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > My first inclination is to say “Don’t fight the hypothetical”. I’m not following that. > [@](#): > > Barring that, do you believe that these quantum differences would be enough to be noticeable at a macro level? Of course. Take the human element out of it. Imagine the same scenario with a nail in it instead of a person. Would the two nails look identical after 100 years? Would they corrode in exactly the same way? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/12 "2010-12-31T18:40:59Z")
Let’s take that Chaos Theory take a bit farther. Sure, humans, especially human brains, are chaotic systems - very complex nonlinear systems. And sure, we all know about the butterfly effect, about how chaotic systems have extreme sensitivity to small differences in conditions, so even a quantum flux may change the course of the system dramatically. But there is more to Chaos theory than that. Chaos theory does stop at saying that it is impossible to predict outcomes in chaotic systems: it goes on to say that there are attractor basins of outcomes, states that the system is likely to end up in even if there is no predicting how it will get there. The usual analogy is to think of a marble rolling across a rimmed tabletop with a large concavity in its center. The exact course of the marble is nearly impossible to predict but predicting that it will end up at the bottom of that basin is pretty easy. So will they take different courses? Highly likely. Will significant choices that they make likely end up the same? That depends on how big the attractor basin for various possible outcomes of that individual’s fundamental personality is. I’d posit that in a chaotic system this large those random fluxes would end being so many as to be effectively background noise and that a human’s personality (and thus its set of choices) is a very large attractor basin. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identical-persons-in-identical-rooms/565893/13 "2010-12-31T20:23:24Z")
Thanks **DSeid** - that makes a lot of sense of something I read a while back (in NewScientist, I think) - that although the hardware of our brains functions on a ‘bottom up’ principle, our minds may be able to be generalised as a set of ‘top down’ functions - although the many, tiny factors are doing the work, they can be largely ignored when dealing with the questions of why the mind did this or that thing.