Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!mit-eddie!rutgers!mcnc!ecsgate!ecsvax!urjlew
From: urjlew@uncecs.edu (Rostyk Lewyckyj)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Can unrelated twins exist (again)
Summary: Perhaps the odds are somewhat better
Message-ID: <1990Aug7.044718.26925@uncecs.edu>
Date: 7 Aug 90 04:47:18 GMT
References: <15289@reed.UUCP> <1796@ccadfa.adfa.oz.au>
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 13


Perhaps a significant proportion of the chromosome and gene 
rearrangements which you considered as possible are not in
fact possible thus the probability of a doppelganger may be
significantly higher than the 1 in 10^166 which you naively
calculate.
Also you can increase the number of people available for matching
by some small factor, since there is no reason to restrict the
doppelganager to be alive at the same time. At the very least
you should allow the case where their lifetimes only intersect
for a moment. Of course in the Riverworld everything that ever
lived is supposed to be alive concurrently.
Happy theorizing/fantacizing :-)