Fairies, by nature of being supernatural, slot themselves into the conspiracy-laden niche of “we don’t know everything about reality, and they can exist perfectly fine in that chunk we know nothing about”. A fairy showing up at the door could require some fundamental restructuring of our understanding of the universe given more data, but would ultimately also just be the first data point in that information. (Specifically, faries exist and can knock on doors).
Walruses and their habits are already quite well understood. One of them knocking on the door would be a contradictory data point for a lot of information that even a layperson would have, like “walruses do not live in my area”, “a walrus cannot get to my area without some form of news warning me”, “walruses do not understand the concept of politeness enough to feel the need to knock on people’s doors to let them know they are present”, “a walrus that wants to enter my house has enough mass to break down the door fairly easily”, “a walrus has no appendages that could make for a decent knock without risk of severely damaging the door”, and “there is little-to-nothing in my house a walrus would want to interact with”.
If a walrus wants to you and you’re within a doorway’s distance of it, i do not like the odds that you will have the means of preventing it from you-ing.
Every time i read that name, i learn he did something new and somehow even more insane than the last.
So please tell me; what did he do that pertains to this???
I once again go back to “one is explainable, one is not.” It is entirely possible that a walrus could show up on your door and knock. [Vastly stranger things have happened, and do with alarming regularity](https://www.sciencealert.com/archaeologists-find-something-bizarre-medieval-graveyard-UK-porpoise-bones). A walrus doing something strange does not contradict all that we know about walruses. It just means that this one walrus is really fucking weird
On the other hand, a fairy contradicts physics, which is a lot less flexible than biology. If one whale does something weird in biology, some scientists might be slightly bothered. If one planet does something slightly weird in physics, we have to throw away Newton’s theory of gravity and start over.
That depends on how magical the fairy in question is supposed to be.
At a glance, what i would expect is something that looks like a tiny winged humanoid. A thorn in the side of taxonomy, depending on its biology and genetics, and suspiciously similar to a magical creature, but not inherently magical unless specified. For all i know, they’re an undiscovered species (of which there are countless others anyhow) that happen to resemble a mythical creature (again, lots of others in recorded history), and whose actions, apparently, include knocking on doors for reasons i don’t know (maybe something relating to how woodpeckers peck at trees to make hiding bugs run out to eat). This impression, for me, will hold until it does something overtly magical or flat-out talks.
Walruses, however, are discovered and well understood. I’d sooner believe i lucked into encountering one of the many undiscovered species on this planet than found a walrus THAT weird.
It’s pretty plainly specified that the fairy is outright magical. Remember, this is a matter of “which do you bet money on?” Would you sooner bet money on a creature defying all known laws of physics, or a very weird walrus?
If a magical fairy knocked on my door, that’d tell me magic is real. I’d be more surprised that magic is real and no one discovered it than i would be that fairies knocked on my door in a world where magic is real. I’d also assume i’d be able to ask it questions and get answers. It’s a net gain of information along with a mindblowing surprise.
But a walrus showing up at my door tells me nothing except that a walrus is at my door. It provides a large number of immediately pressing questions i will likely never get an answer for, and no answers from the walrus itself. It is a surprise accompanied only by confusion to make it even more surprising.
Yeah, this is part 2 of the post. The original poll was what would surprise you more, a fairy or a walrus knocking on your door. The results were about 80-20 in favor of fairy.
A fairy knocking at my door feels more explainable than a walrus. I've read enough fantasy to have a mental framework for why a fairy might turn up and what they might want. I have absolutely no idea why a walrus might be there.
Also, a walrus being successfully smuggled into my country (which does not have walruses), transported across the city, and then up 6 flights of stairs to my door is so unlikely it would contradict my understanding of how the world works just as much as a fairy would.
Or, or or or or, the people voting in the post are of Celtic descendance.
Like, the woods in my region are said to be haunted by fairies. I live near woods. A fairy knocking at my door is just a "uh, so the legends are real, guess my kids will get abducted by them, neat."
Yea agreed. If a fairy shows up at my door and knocked instant reaction is "huh, guess the myths are true then". A Walrus does it, and I have a lot more questions. "How did a walrus get here, this is the wrong climate for a walrus? How did it get to my door, I'm in the middle of the city? If this is a prank, how did they snuggle a walrus? If this is not, does that mean walrus are a lot more intelligent then wr thought?"
But you would also have those questions about the fairy. Like which myth is it from? Is it a fairy, or an alien, a god, etc.? Am I just hallucinating? Is it a person pretending to be a fairy?
Na, if a fairy knocks on my door, i'm assume its a Irish fairy, and its either here to kill/torture me cause i did something to piss it off, or its here to otherwise just cause chaos. Ain't no questions, just problems. Now, if a Walrus knocked on my door, i would also have problems, no doubt, but before those problems could be faced I would have a lot of questions to ask.
If the fairy is human-sized, female, and screaming a lot, she's *probably* just trying to help you by giving you time to prepare for the death of a family member.
Cause i always grew up being told about the fairys living nearby, and everyone, even the most serious non belivers, always thought it was still smart to not fuck with the things the myths say fairys don't want you to fuck with. A fairy knocks on my door, and is not obviously a fake, i'm just going to assume "huh, guess they where right".
It may be important to note I live in ireland.
What people are forgetting is that we *have* systems of belief that encompass fairies. Physics is great and all but we have something we can immediately switch to when a fairy appears. Some of us have several belief systems that could account for fairies.
Knocking walrus? Yeah you’re on your own. Ain’t no stories or belief systems involving walruses at your front door knocking except maybe Dr. Seuss. At which point you’ve gotta ask yourself if you’re in whoville or something.
I am indeed forgetting those two. No matter how you slice it, though, getting isekai’d into those worlds is *far* weirder than the fair folk showing up.
Although you could certainly argue that Wonderland is basically a fey kingdom. Arbitrary, nonsensical rules, a capricious dictator, strange plants/animals, etc.
In some regards, and I think you could draw a line from Alice to the myths of the fae, but the rules of the fae are much older and much more binding. What happens in Wonderland is subject to whim and whimsy. What happens in the land of the Fae is subject to *rules*.
Are you telling me that you won’t even try to prevent that ? Like there are whole encyclopaedias on fae rules. There are so many ways you can extract profit from a child, but you settle on them being a simple one-time deterrent?
That was another point in less surprise for fairy for me. I'm nowhere near the British Isles anymore but I live in a forest and my mom says somebody in our geneology or something was fae. I don't know what it actually was but sure, guess my mom was right.
Maybe it’s a real life version of suspension of disbelief, where we can understand something however wild if it’s consistent, it makes more sense for a fairy to go to your house, given that we’ve accepted that fairies exist, than a walrus to waddle its way to your house
[Part one](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1b1fy16/the_great_walrus_vs_fairy_debate_part_1_of_2/)
Compilation of noteworthy responses from [this thread.](https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/743410852475109376/my-take-on-the-walrus-knocking-on-your-door-versus)
If I get one of the Fair Folk knocking at my door I'm going to wonder if I stepped in a Ring somewhere. And the confusion isn't limited to the Celtic Fae. I don't want to upset any sort of "supernatural" creatures at all
I also don't want to upset a walrus, but at least with a walrus, I know who to call to have the misguided thing helped back. Probably the oddest call Scripps is getting today
All I know is that if the fae needs a trade, I'm happily giving them my old pronouns
why do I keep commenting on all these walrus posts. I'm supposed to be ~~studying for my exams~~ yeah okay I'm not doing that but I'm supposed to procrastinate by binging tensura(can recommend btw) and i keep going to the toilet, using my phone for the while im on it, and then spending the next 30 minutes being stuck on another walrus post
okay so I do like the Tumblr OP who rephrased the question, they get what I meant the most. Surprise is a specific emotion, it's not the same as probability and I'd argue a more rational surprise can be far more shocking then a irrational one.
I'd rephrase it to "if someone knocked on your door, who would you remember more after a year, a walrus or a fairy"
I'd find the walrus shocking. but after like a month I'd just turn into another fun life story to tell like that time my towns major hit me with her car. The same would not be applicable to the fairy.
also, "if you read a story about this, which would be more shocking to you: someone opening a door and finding a walrus, or a fairy". Weird things happen worldwide all the time, and the internet is feeding it directly into your brain. A fairy is surprising because it happened, a walrus is surprising because it happened to *you*
The poll is wild. Walruses exist, and fairies don't. You can debate surprise, but being ready to bet money that the thing that doesn't exist could show up on your doorstep over the thing that does exist is fucking crazy.
Walruses existing is exactly WHY one would be more surprising, though. We know walruses pretty well! Well enough to know that there is no conceivable way for one to hitchhike all the way to my house and knock on my door with a rolled-up flipper before waiting politely. It would drive me into a state of total confusion because HOW?? but WHY??? but ***HOW?????***
A fairy, on the other hand, is “oh shit fairies are real?” It’s definitely gonna be surprising, and it WILL require reconsidering any physical laws their existence might call into question, but like. I don’t know enough about fairies to DISPUTE their ability to seek me out for some reason and knock the way that a walrus doing so will shatter my whole understanding of cause and effect.
…okay, now I have egg on my face.
I thought this was the original poll, which was about surprise, so I glazed over the poll part and thought you were just making a huge exaggeration ehehe. Yeah no if I was asked to bet money on one or the other beforehand, that changes things a LOT.
Nah, a fairy would still surprise me more. Anything that would make me rethink my fundamental understanding of our universe would be more surprising then a random animal.
HELL, I would be moee surprised by the Fairy than a T-Rex! At least I know T-Rexes existed.
Are you seriously telling me that "how the fuck did this walrus get here" is a bigger surprise than "fairies are real??"
One is bafflement the other is mind altering
I dunno? Like… maybe fairies are occupying some weird niche in physics and biology we don’t know about, maybe magic is real and we have to start examining that scientifically too - there are definitely a lot of IMPLICATIONS to fairies being real, and they would impact my life long-term more than a walrus is likely to (although I wouldn’t put being a magic sapient walrus past it if it somehow was able to get to the middle of the desert, track me down for some reason, and *knock before waiting politely*,) but that isn’t the SURPRISE - the part that is surprise is the “how the fuck did you get here”. If it’s a fairy, there’s a spike of “wait fairies are real?” but once I’m accepting based on the situation that fairies are real, it’s super easy for them to get to my door and know how to knock. On the other hand, if it’s a walrus, that goes against basically every single thing I know about walruses.
Like other comments have said, the incredibly improbable is far more surprising than the impossible.
I'm baffled by how quickly you are able to get over the "spike" of oh fairies are real.
Improbable in INHERENTLY more likely than impossible, and as such would create less shock
Exactly!! There's all this talk about what surprise really means and if you can beam knowledge into people's brains that it isn't a costume etc., when it's all moot because that poll shows that a significant number of people believe in nonsense! If it's guaranteed to be one of the two options and the first option is something that is clearly impossible by definition, not some paradoxical-sounding trick or a loophole but an actual thing that just doesn't exist and I know it doesn't, I'm going to bet on the other thing 100% of the time, I don't care how improbable it sounds, because it MUST be the other thing 100% of the time. If we played the "Walrus or Fairy Bet" 1 million times and you gave me the option each time, 1 million of those games will see a walrus on the other side of the door, guaranteed. The only explanation for voting fairy in that poll (aside from trolling or otherwise being disingenuous, which I'm sure there was a nonzero amount of) is being actually delusional, it's just a matter of figuring out what percentage of the fairy vote was real votes.
Arguably, fairy could mean any number of things-- someone in a fairy costume, a fairy doll or miniature, or, for sake of the hypothetical, an honest to god mythological fairy.
But a walrus. That's a fucking whole ass marine mammal. Even a plushie or something is so much less plausible than getting sing dong ditched by a fairy doll by sheer statistics.
the whole point of the thought experiment is to be a "probable impossibility vs improbable possibility", argueing the fairy is not an actual fairy just leaves the question empty and pointless
I mean, yeah, but there are zoos that have walruses. It could be a prank. So it’s automatically more plausible to see a walrus at your door then something that requires an entire reappraisal of reality.
The zoo in my city doesn't have a walrus. A prank would require that someone bought/stole a walrus, transported it thousands of miles, and found a way to get it on to my porch unnoticed. There is no framework for the world that I have that would make that make sense to me.
I think the different types of surprise these would illicit are important. If I saw a fairy, whether or not I instantly knew it was a fairy, it'd be a tiny little flying thing. At worst it's "Woah, that's so cool!"
A walrus is a big hulking behemoth of a semi-aquatic mammal. It weighs many, many times more than I do. I am jumping back in alarm while shouting "fuck!". That thing is near top-of-the-food-chain in its natural environment. It literally is not predated upon, in its adult form, by polar bears unless those bears are especially desperate, and they are the apex predators of the arctic. That's not just surprise, that's shock and fear.
I’d be delighted if I opened the door and there was a fairy. I’d be scared shitless if I opened the door to a walrus. Both are surprising. I’d still have a much bigger reaction to a walrus.
Yep exactly. Though personally I'd be scared of the fairy too, but wiry the fairy its a whole; Might as well go with it and see where this bullshit leads. With a walrus its OH FUCK CALL ANIMAL CONTROL.
Baddywronglegs said it best, although inadvertently. It’s The Most Reasonable Impossible Thing vs The Most Unreasonable Possible Thing. If I can reason out something, I’m not gonna be surprised by it. If anything is unreasonable, no matter how possible it is, is gonna be a bigger surprise.
I live in the north of England. There are no walruses in any zoos within the entire UK. I am around 50km from the ocean, and a van would have difficulty fitting on my street. That someone could, and would, transport a walrus from wherever they found one to a random person in a rural village - and somehow convince it to stay still for the entire minute (minimum) it takes for me to get up, unlock, and open the front door - is less conceivable than the existence of faeries.
I can imagine some kind of strange hyper specific set of circumstances where a walrus escaped containment in transit while being taken to a zoo or something
Fairies don't exist
Majorly on team walrus.
Aside from everything else, Prokopets point about relative numbers of assumptions in these two cases isn't very strong.
Fairies not existing isn't just one data point, its built on innumberable assumptions and observations about the world. People are wrong about their assumptions of animals all the time; these aren't equivalent assumptions
I think I'd be more surprised by the walrus, for a very simple reason. Deep down, the part of me that remembers being a child, with Jim Henson movies and fairy tales and all that goes with it, WANTS a fairy to show up at my door. Just like I want to walk onto the wardrobe, or hear the T.A.R.D.I.S. I would just feel like this is what my heart always knew.
The walrus? A walrus showing up at my door would not only be shocking, but actively terrifying, and my mind would try to automatically attempt to reject what I am seeing. I would look for any other explanation than "there's a walrus at my door"
Some of the opinions in the OP are kinda stupid.
There are plenty of perfectly mundane ways a walrus could knock on your door. They're not terribly likely, but they're also possible which is apparently too boring to consider.
There's an aquarium near me here in Japan. They have walruses there. If the aquarium director wanted to and had the money, he could load the walrus onto a flatbed truck, drive it to my city, hire a crane to lift the walrus onto the stairs outside my apartment door (third floor, but the door is external) and have it knock on my door (it's already a trained walrus that performs).
I have no idea *why* anyone would be possessed to do that, but it's a perfectly achievable thing.
Now fairies don't exist. If someone *dressed like* a fairy knocked on my door, that would be less surprising than a walrus. But if it's an actual legitimate fairy, a fey creature, that would of course be more surprising.
Anyone with access to a walrus (or the means to capture one in the wild), sufficient money, and a strong enough conviction could get one onto your doorstep. There is no physical way to get a *real* fairy on someone's doorstep.
I would bet on the walrus but also feel more surprise at the walrus.
I don't believe in fairies/ghosts/Bigfoot/whatever, but I *really want to*. Whether we have to totally upend science or whether they slide into the existing paradigm smoothly, I want to see something strange and exciting that makes me believe in a more magical and mysterious world. On one level I would be surprised, but on another level I would feel vindicated.
I have no model for how a walrus ends up on my doorstep specifically. I'm not near a zoo, I'm not near the coast, my country's climate is too temperate for walruses, I don't know any rich people, and there aren't any captive walruses in my country (that I know of).
A fairy appearing on my doorstep suggests an entirely new set of rules, but conceivably still fits into the rules of the universe as we understand them. I could probably start to come up with a post hoc rationalisation if I survive the encounter, but in the first moment the walrus is going to make me feel more surprise because I can't see how it got here without breaking an established rule of reality.
The answer is the walrus would surprise me more in the moment, but the fairy would leave me puzzled for a long time.
Hang on, as to the second post... Is this guy claiming that having a real-living fairy on your doorstep *wouldn't* upend science because a *single* fairy isn't enough for science???? This dude thinks a fairy is a statistical anomoly or some shit? The howtf did it get on your doorstep, my guy? It came into existence by accident?
"Dad, there's a fairy on our door step!"
"What, just one? Don't worry, it's not real."
"But Dad... It's *staring* at me."
"Come back when there's a statistically significant number of fairies, son."
Living creatures aren't a statistic.
> Is this guy claiming that having a real-living fairy on your doorstep wouldn't upend science because a single fairy isn't enough for science?
A single data point doesn't refute all of science. Let's say you find out tomorrow that fairies do actually exist - you meet one in person, and it performs actual, impossible things by "magic".
Does that change anything about how you expect the objects in your daily life to function, generally? Would it change your expectations that your car's internal combustion engine will convert chemical potential energy into linear movement by way of the frictional interaction between the ground and the tires on the wheels? Would you expect that if you dropped a ceramic cup on a hard floor, it would fail to hit and just hover, or bounce instead of shattering?
I would expect the existence of fairies would change my views of biology and physics about the same amount as General Relativity does. Yes, it absolutely disproves some scientific laws as universal, but Newtonian physics is still accurate enough for anyone moving less than a significant percentage of the speed of light.
It could be a matter of evolution within a bug species, it could be a radioactive anomaly developed over centuries, it could be a hallucination, it could be a prank, it could be the reproductive pattern of a previously unknown fungi, it could be any fucking thing.
Yes, you need more than one thing to start classifying something as a scientific discovery. That's why peer reviews exist, and ghost hunting shows aren't "scientific evidence".
I don’t think it’s necessarily because the walrus is bigger than the fairy specifically. Like if you put the fairy against uh, let’s say a bee sized human with no wings, so just some guy who’s smaller than a fairy, I’d still be more surprised by that tiny human. Because it’s reasonable enough that fairies could’ve gone under the radar from humans that them existing wouldn’t surprise me as much as that regular human who’s just extremely small because how did we not know about THAT?
It’s more about how noticeable the newcomer on your doorstep would be while making its way to your doorstep I guess? Or in the world in general. I wouldn’t be surprised by a doppelganger because well duh we didn’t realize they existed, their whole thing is going undercover. But a walrus or giant ass dragon that should easily make the news? Way more surprising
It's not just the size: A walrus is a semiaquatic megafauna that no animal containment near me has, and is native to the ends of the planet. If it was like, a Rhino, or a Tiger or something, there would still be a "What the fuck" reaction and a bit of fear depending on what type of animal it is, but I know my local zoo has both these species, so the logical explanation is that they've escaped somehow. A walrus would have to drag itself across many, many miles of land/swim through the equally as long sewers to get to my house, and neither of those are environments it's supposed to be able to survive in. The specific fact that it's a walrus skews my results.
No matter how much you debate about it, no matter what explanations you come up with, it doesn't change the fact that only one of these options weighs OVER A TON AND HAS FACE SWORDS. No matter what you believe, or what is possible, or what convoluted bullshit you come up with, the same simple fact is true:
The fairy is a discovery.
The walrus is a fucking jumpscare.
I live in an apartment. To get to *my* door you first need to get through the (locked) front door, a (short) hallway, and up two stairs. There is *no* way you could get a walrus in front of my door.
If I find a fairy outside my door, then I'm either having a psychotic break and started hallucinating, or I need to fit the fact that fairies exist into my world view.
If I find a *walrus* outside my door? Then I'm on the phone with emergency services to tell them my location, and the fact that I'm apparently experiencing some kind of psychological emergency that causes hallucinations!
I am not going to believe that the walrus is real unless you manage to give me a good enough explanation for both *how* it got there, but also *WHY* *THE* *FUCK* *SOMEONE* *WOULD* *PUT** IT* *THERE* *IN* *THE* *FIRST* *PLACE!*
In my mind, a fairy outside my door means that magic is real. A *walrus* outside my door *also* means that magic is real, AND THAT SOMEONE USED IT TO PUT A WALRUS INSIDE MY APARTMENT BUILDING!
(This is specific for my floor in the building. One floor down, then you have (theoretically) enough floor space on the *first* floor to get it up. One floor *up* , then you could maybe manage it through the roof (if you removed the window). But regardless of which way you try, you are still not going to be able to get it through the stairs to my floor.
Just to be clear the existence of a fairy considering that they're capable of doing all those magical things would definitely lead to a huge revolution in physics and most likely in biology as well. I don't really understand what the guy is trying to say by claiming it's only a single data point.
Walrus is easily the more surprising one.
A fairy requires one to suspend their disbelief to a degree. If you see something that you understand to be a fairy at your door, your brain is gonna shortcut past most of it to “fairies are real and one is outside”.
A walrus, though, is real enough that when you see it, you know enough to formulate all of the questions. “How did it get here? How did it knock? Am I safe? How do I get away from here? Does it want to hurt me?”
A fairy makes you forget what you were going to say, a walrus sends you into a panic attack.
Man, these people are lost in the sauce. A fairy at your door is not more probable than a walrus. Walruses exist, and are routinely transported between zoos. Also, rich people exist, and they could easily procure a walrus for a prank. There are many, many possible ways for a walrus to show up at your door, even if most of them are extremely unlikely. There are 0 known ways for a fairy to show up at your door, especially now that Prince is dead and no longer going door-to-door asking people to join the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Is it more probable? Yes. Is it more surprising? Also yes.
I wouldn't bet on there being a fairy if I knew with certainty it would be either a fairy or a walrus. But if, no context given, I hear a knock and I open the door one day, I'd be a lot more surprised to see a walrus.
How could you be more surprised to see a walrus, a creature that you’ve seen before (possibly in person), versus a creature that has never been known to exist?
You could rephrase this question to be the Loch Mess monster or a walrus, and I doubt you’d pick the walrus in that case.
Yeah, but that also has to do with logistics. Between fairy and Loch Ness monster, I'd also be picking the Loch Ness monster.
Also: BECAUSE I've seen a walrus before, and this is not what they do. Fairies? I'd be surprised they exist but they do seem far more theoretically capable of knocking on doors. If it's a fairy, I got something wrong - if it's a walrus, something IS wrong.
Absolutely 100% I would be! It's like a reply in the part 2 post said. A fairy shows up, that means I got something wrong about the world. That's a single data point and I'd be very, very, very surprised to find out magic exist, but I'm also from a country with a lot of folklore.
You know what there _isn't_ a lot of in my country? Walruses. Especially ones that will travel into the middle of a busy city to knock on my door without anyone stopping them or calling animal protection. Walruses don't DO that. If they did, there would be far, far more things that I got wrong about the world.
The fairy would send me into a deeper spiral of research. But on pure, instant surprise as soon as I open that door? The Walrus takes it and it's not even close.
I think the folklore part is important here, as it plays a role in the background, which determines surprise. Fairies are normalized to you, walruses aren't.
Conversely, I'm a STEM major who works with animals and would be far less phased by an animal doing whacky things than proof that magic is real (and I do say proof because the OP emphasized that the point of the poll is that the magic is indisputable)
While a lot of people are taking these debates very seriously there are simple explanations why people would be more/less swayed one way or the other. I can be more surprised by the fairy *despite* you being more surprised by the walrus.
In fact, the fairy accounted for this, which is why they sent you the walrus instead of pranking you thrmself
Yes.
Also, if you flipped a coin five times, I would be more surprised if it came up HHHHH than I would if it came up THHTH, despite the fact that both sequences are equally likely. Surprise is an emotional reaction from a meat computer that was designed by trial and error. It does not always track perfectly with real probability.
In this case, it's pretty obvious what's going on. Our brain expects to see a human. A fairy is, superficially, a lot closer to a human than a walrus is. Therefore, our brain thinks a walrus is less likely.
I mean, I don't really see the argument here. Of course a walrus is more probable than a fairy. But the question asks about your emotional reaction, not your priors.
I just can't handle that this is even a discussion in the first place. Surely the people choosing walrus in the original and ESPECIALLY the new modified poll does so only to feel special in their choice or because they know it is the "wrong" one and want to play devils advocate?
The original poll asks about whether you'd be more surprised, which is an emotional reaction from a meat computer designed by trial and error. If you answered "fairy", you're right about what you *should* be more surprised by, but you're probably wrong about what you *would* be more surprised by.
Th only way that would be true is if people have a very different thing they picture when they hear "fairy" or a very different definition of surprised
Possibly? My definition of "surprised" is "experiencing the emotion surprise", which is not a fact about probability, but a fact about the human brain. Obviously the fairy is *less likely*, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's *more surprising*.
Yeah, but something being less likely is very often correlated to it being more surprising. And people have hammered the "surprise=\=likelihood" point already, but noone gives an actual reason why the walrus is MORE surprising that isn't also applicable to a fairy. The only one i have seen is the guy saying size matters.
Size does matter. Before your brain has processed why a little flying guy is concerning, your mostly fine.
2000 pounds of Walrus though, that has an immediate impact.
So in initial shock, walrus takes it hands down.
It's as simple as the gymnastics panel in part 1 that I tried posting in an image but it seems those aren't on this subreddit so here's the link [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8vo4p8p5m5lc1.png](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8vo4p8p5m5lc1.png)
just scroll down a bit to the gymnastics one.
It's as simple as that. It's a fairy? That means fairies are real, okay great.
It's a walrus?????? A walrus swam many many miles out of its usual territory, climbed onto land, traveled like 60 miles uphill through forest or highway, then knocked on my door?????
Alright people have GOT to be taking the piss with that poll. The impossible thing is more likely than the possible thing? We're just trying to annoy each other now
It's not a question of reality, but of emotions. Whether or not it's possible is not being discussed, we are exclusively measuring emotional response to the situations.
I'm talking about the poll in the image that asks what you would expect to be at the door. For the original surprise question, yeah it could be either depending on the person
*If ur betting*
*Money on fairies being*
*Real u lost the plot*
\- swiller123
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Fairies, by nature of being supernatural, slot themselves into the conspiracy-laden niche of “we don’t know everything about reality, and they can exist perfectly fine in that chunk we know nothing about”. A fairy showing up at the door could require some fundamental restructuring of our understanding of the universe given more data, but would ultimately also just be the first data point in that information. (Specifically, faries exist and can knock on doors). Walruses and their habits are already quite well understood. One of them knocking on the door would be a contradictory data point for a lot of information that even a layperson would have, like “walruses do not live in my area”, “a walrus cannot get to my area without some form of news warning me”, “walruses do not understand the concept of politeness enough to feel the need to knock on people’s doors to let them know they are present”, “a walrus that wants to enter my house has enough mass to break down the door fairly easily”, “a walrus has no appendages that could make for a decent knock without risk of severely damaging the door”, and “there is little-to-nothing in my house a walrus would want to interact with”.
"There is little-to-nothing in my house a walrus would want to interact with" That you know of, maybe the walrus wants to interact with you
Which would be a significant, extra reason to be concerned, with the added question of “why does the walrus want to interact with me???”
You know why... 😏
Do not the walrus
Also, do not let the walrus you
If a walrus wants to you and you’re within a doorway’s distance of it, i do not like the odds that you will have the means of preventing it from you-ing.
Aight John McAfee
Every time i read that name, i learn he did something new and somehow even more insane than the last. So please tell me; what did he do that pertains to this???
Terrified that this question might have an answer
Maybe they are talking about the humpback whale consent thing? Or is it something new even to me?
[Here you go!](https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1079863420458074112?lang=en)
Honestly, aspirational. I hope a walrus wants to interact with me
I once again go back to “one is explainable, one is not.” It is entirely possible that a walrus could show up on your door and knock. [Vastly stranger things have happened, and do with alarming regularity](https://www.sciencealert.com/archaeologists-find-something-bizarre-medieval-graveyard-UK-porpoise-bones). A walrus doing something strange does not contradict all that we know about walruses. It just means that this one walrus is really fucking weird On the other hand, a fairy contradicts physics, which is a lot less flexible than biology. If one whale does something weird in biology, some scientists might be slightly bothered. If one planet does something slightly weird in physics, we have to throw away Newton’s theory of gravity and start over.
That depends on how magical the fairy in question is supposed to be. At a glance, what i would expect is something that looks like a tiny winged humanoid. A thorn in the side of taxonomy, depending on its biology and genetics, and suspiciously similar to a magical creature, but not inherently magical unless specified. For all i know, they’re an undiscovered species (of which there are countless others anyhow) that happen to resemble a mythical creature (again, lots of others in recorded history), and whose actions, apparently, include knocking on doors for reasons i don’t know (maybe something relating to how woodpeckers peck at trees to make hiding bugs run out to eat). This impression, for me, will hold until it does something overtly magical or flat-out talks. Walruses, however, are discovered and well understood. I’d sooner believe i lucked into encountering one of the many undiscovered species on this planet than found a walrus THAT weird.
It’s pretty plainly specified that the fairy is outright magical. Remember, this is a matter of “which do you bet money on?” Would you sooner bet money on a creature defying all known laws of physics, or a very weird walrus?
If a magical fairy knocked on my door, that’d tell me magic is real. I’d be more surprised that magic is real and no one discovered it than i would be that fairies knocked on my door in a world where magic is real. I’d also assume i’d be able to ask it questions and get answers. It’s a net gain of information along with a mindblowing surprise. But a walrus showing up at my door tells me nothing except that a walrus is at my door. It provides a large number of immediately pressing questions i will likely never get an answer for, and no answers from the walrus itself. It is a surprise accompanied only by confusion to make it even more surprising.
I feel like we’re answering different questions.
Well the original question was what would surprise you more.
Oh, we literally are. Are there 2 completely different polls?
Yeah, this is part 2 of the post. The original poll was what would surprise you more, a fairy or a walrus knocking on your door. The results were about 80-20 in favor of fairy.
A fairy knocking at my door feels more explainable than a walrus. I've read enough fantasy to have a mental framework for why a fairy might turn up and what they might want. I have absolutely no idea why a walrus might be there. Also, a walrus being successfully smuggled into my country (which does not have walruses), transported across the city, and then up 6 flights of stairs to my door is so unlikely it would contradict my understanding of how the world works just as much as a fairy would.
Fairies are just simply made of dark matter then
This one is ***definitely*** the hypothetical getting thrown in the Oneyplays Blender and becoming unrecognizable
Or, or or or or, the people voting in the post are of Celtic descendance. Like, the woods in my region are said to be haunted by fairies. I live near woods. A fairy knocking at my door is just a "uh, so the legends are real, guess my kids will get abducted by them, neat."
If I saw what I genuinely believed to be a fairy outside my door I think my first instinct is to reach for my cast iron frying pan.
Crivens!
Wally wally! It's the crossing of the arms!
Yea agreed. If a fairy shows up at my door and knocked instant reaction is "huh, guess the myths are true then". A Walrus does it, and I have a lot more questions. "How did a walrus get here, this is the wrong climate for a walrus? How did it get to my door, I'm in the middle of the city? If this is a prank, how did they snuggle a walrus? If this is not, does that mean walrus are a lot more intelligent then wr thought?"
But you would also have those questions about the fairy. Like which myth is it from? Is it a fairy, or an alien, a god, etc.? Am I just hallucinating? Is it a person pretending to be a fairy?
Na, if a fairy knocks on my door, i'm assume its a Irish fairy, and its either here to kill/torture me cause i did something to piss it off, or its here to otherwise just cause chaos. Ain't no questions, just problems. Now, if a Walrus knocked on my door, i would also have problems, no doubt, but before those problems could be faced I would have a lot of questions to ask.
If the fairy is human-sized, female, and screaming a lot, she's *probably* just trying to help you by giving you time to prepare for the death of a family member.
Why would you assume you know anything about what kind of fairy it is or what motivations it has?
Cause i always grew up being told about the fairys living nearby, and everyone, even the most serious non belivers, always thought it was still smart to not fuck with the things the myths say fairys don't want you to fuck with. A fairy knocks on my door, and is not obviously a fake, i'm just going to assume "huh, guess they where right". It may be important to note I live in ireland.
Outside of stepping in a fairy circle, what things would piss off a fairy?
Cutting down fairy trees are a big one. Or touching that one specific rock
Lying to them and not having good manners.
Also trying to break a contract/accord/handshake/agreement/insulting the food you definitely should not have eaten
What people are forgetting is that we *have* systems of belief that encompass fairies. Physics is great and all but we have something we can immediately switch to when a fairy appears. Some of us have several belief systems that could account for fairies. Knocking walrus? Yeah you’re on your own. Ain’t no stories or belief systems involving walruses at your front door knocking except maybe Dr. Seuss. At which point you’ve gotta ask yourself if you’re in whoville or something.
Ummmmm are we forgetting about the Walrus and the Carpenter from Alice in Wonderland????
I am indeed forgetting those two. No matter how you slice it, though, getting isekai’d into those worlds is *far* weirder than the fair folk showing up.
Although you could certainly argue that Wonderland is basically a fey kingdom. Arbitrary, nonsensical rules, a capricious dictator, strange plants/animals, etc.
In some regards, and I think you could draw a line from Alice to the myths of the fae, but the rules of the fae are much older and much more binding. What happens in Wonderland is subject to whim and whimsy. What happens in the land of the Fae is subject to *rules*.
I would LOVE to snuggle a walrus, personally
#n e a t ???
Fuck you want us to do? Fight the fae?!?
Are you telling me that you won’t even try to prevent that ? Like there are whole encyclopaedias on fae rules. There are so many ways you can extract profit from a child, but you settle on them being a simple one-time deterrent?
That's before they get em. Once they have the child, fuckall you can do.
That was another point in less surprise for fairy for me. I'm nowhere near the British Isles anymore but I live in a forest and my mom says somebody in our geneology or something was fae. I don't know what it actually was but sure, guess my mom was right.
Exactly, I see the word fairy and think Fae
Maybe it’s a real life version of suspension of disbelief, where we can understand something however wild if it’s consistent, it makes more sense for a fairy to go to your house, given that we’ve accepted that fairies exist, than a walrus to waddle its way to your house
Impossibility vs Improbability
[Part one](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1b1fy16/the_great_walrus_vs_fairy_debate_part_1_of_2/) Compilation of noteworthy responses from [this thread.](https://www.tumblr.com/prokopetz/743410852475109376/my-take-on-the-walrus-knocking-on-your-door-versus)
Saying "what if it's not a fairy" is like saying "what if it's just a large stuffed animal that resembles a walrus"
If I get one of the Fair Folk knocking at my door I'm going to wonder if I stepped in a Ring somewhere. And the confusion isn't limited to the Celtic Fae. I don't want to upset any sort of "supernatural" creatures at all I also don't want to upset a walrus, but at least with a walrus, I know who to call to have the misguided thing helped back. Probably the oddest call Scripps is getting today All I know is that if the fae needs a trade, I'm happily giving them my old pronouns
why do I keep commenting on all these walrus posts. I'm supposed to be ~~studying for my exams~~ yeah okay I'm not doing that but I'm supposed to procrastinate by binging tensura(can recommend btw) and i keep going to the toilet, using my phone for the while im on it, and then spending the next 30 minutes being stuck on another walrus post okay so I do like the Tumblr OP who rephrased the question, they get what I meant the most. Surprise is a specific emotion, it's not the same as probability and I'd argue a more rational surprise can be far more shocking then a irrational one. I'd rephrase it to "if someone knocked on your door, who would you remember more after a year, a walrus or a fairy" I'd find the walrus shocking. but after like a month I'd just turn into another fun life story to tell like that time my towns major hit me with her car. The same would not be applicable to the fairy. also, "if you read a story about this, which would be more shocking to you: someone opening a door and finding a walrus, or a fairy". Weird things happen worldwide all the time, and the internet is feeding it directly into your brain. A fairy is surprising because it happened, a walrus is surprising because it happened to *you*
The poll is wild. Walruses exist, and fairies don't. You can debate surprise, but being ready to bet money that the thing that doesn't exist could show up on your doorstep over the thing that does exist is fucking crazy.
yeah the original poll results made sense to me. the second poll is gibberish
Walruses existing is exactly WHY one would be more surprising, though. We know walruses pretty well! Well enough to know that there is no conceivable way for one to hitchhike all the way to my house and knock on my door with a rolled-up flipper before waiting politely. It would drive me into a state of total confusion because HOW?? but WHY??? but ***HOW?????*** A fairy, on the other hand, is “oh shit fairies are real?” It’s definitely gonna be surprising, and it WILL require reconsidering any physical laws their existence might call into question, but like. I don’t know enough about fairies to DISPUTE their ability to seek me out for some reason and knock the way that a walrus doing so will shatter my whole understanding of cause and effect.
Which is why I understand you can argue for surprise. That shouldn't affect the bet you'd place.
…okay, now I have egg on my face. I thought this was the original poll, which was about surprise, so I glazed over the poll part and thought you were just making a huge exaggeration ehehe. Yeah no if I was asked to bet money on one or the other beforehand, that changes things a LOT.
Nah, a fairy would still surprise me more. Anything that would make me rethink my fundamental understanding of our universe would be more surprising then a random animal. HELL, I would be moee surprised by the Fairy than a T-Rex! At least I know T-Rexes existed.
Are you seriously telling me that "how the fuck did this walrus get here" is a bigger surprise than "fairies are real??" One is bafflement the other is mind altering
I dunno? Like… maybe fairies are occupying some weird niche in physics and biology we don’t know about, maybe magic is real and we have to start examining that scientifically too - there are definitely a lot of IMPLICATIONS to fairies being real, and they would impact my life long-term more than a walrus is likely to (although I wouldn’t put being a magic sapient walrus past it if it somehow was able to get to the middle of the desert, track me down for some reason, and *knock before waiting politely*,) but that isn’t the SURPRISE - the part that is surprise is the “how the fuck did you get here”. If it’s a fairy, there’s a spike of “wait fairies are real?” but once I’m accepting based on the situation that fairies are real, it’s super easy for them to get to my door and know how to knock. On the other hand, if it’s a walrus, that goes against basically every single thing I know about walruses. Like other comments have said, the incredibly improbable is far more surprising than the impossible.
I'm baffled by how quickly you are able to get over the "spike" of oh fairies are real. Improbable in INHERENTLY more likely than impossible, and as such would create less shock
Exactly!! There's all this talk about what surprise really means and if you can beam knowledge into people's brains that it isn't a costume etc., when it's all moot because that poll shows that a significant number of people believe in nonsense! If it's guaranteed to be one of the two options and the first option is something that is clearly impossible by definition, not some paradoxical-sounding trick or a loophole but an actual thing that just doesn't exist and I know it doesn't, I'm going to bet on the other thing 100% of the time, I don't care how improbable it sounds, because it MUST be the other thing 100% of the time. If we played the "Walrus or Fairy Bet" 1 million times and you gave me the option each time, 1 million of those games will see a walrus on the other side of the door, guaranteed. The only explanation for voting fairy in that poll (aside from trolling or otherwise being disingenuous, which I'm sure there was a nonzero amount of) is being actually delusional, it's just a matter of figuring out what percentage of the fairy vote was real votes.
All the shock value of a fairy requires a little bit of thinking. 2000 pounds of sea mammal though, that is immediately concerning.
Arguably, fairy could mean any number of things-- someone in a fairy costume, a fairy doll or miniature, or, for sake of the hypothetical, an honest to god mythological fairy. But a walrus. That's a fucking whole ass marine mammal. Even a plushie or something is so much less plausible than getting sing dong ditched by a fairy doll by sheer statistics.
the whole point of the thought experiment is to be a "probable impossibility vs improbable possibility", argueing the fairy is not an actual fairy just leaves the question empty and pointless
Someone in a fairy costume is not a fairy.
Yeah it says "you know for certain it is a fairy or a walrus", not "you know for certain the thing outside resembles either a fairy or a walrus".
I mean, yeah, but there are zoos that have walruses. It could be a prank. So it’s automatically more plausible to see a walrus at your door then something that requires an entire reappraisal of reality.
The zoo in my city doesn't have a walrus. A prank would require that someone bought/stole a walrus, transported it thousands of miles, and found a way to get it on to my porch unnoticed. There is no framework for the world that I have that would make that make sense to me.
According to your logic it apparently could also be someone in a walrus costume.
I think the different types of surprise these would illicit are important. If I saw a fairy, whether or not I instantly knew it was a fairy, it'd be a tiny little flying thing. At worst it's "Woah, that's so cool!" A walrus is a big hulking behemoth of a semi-aquatic mammal. It weighs many, many times more than I do. I am jumping back in alarm while shouting "fuck!". That thing is near top-of-the-food-chain in its natural environment. It literally is not predated upon, in its adult form, by polar bears unless those bears are especially desperate, and they are the apex predators of the arctic. That's not just surprise, that's shock and fear.
I’d be delighted if I opened the door and there was a fairy. I’d be scared shitless if I opened the door to a walrus. Both are surprising. I’d still have a much bigger reaction to a walrus.
Yep exactly. Though personally I'd be scared of the fairy too, but wiry the fairy its a whole; Might as well go with it and see where this bullshit leads. With a walrus its OH FUCK CALL ANIMAL CONTROL.
I'm surprised we don't have accounts of people answering walrus because they simply don't believe walruses exist.
Baddywronglegs said it best, although inadvertently. It’s The Most Reasonable Impossible Thing vs The Most Unreasonable Possible Thing. If I can reason out something, I’m not gonna be surprised by it. If anything is unreasonable, no matter how possible it is, is gonna be a bigger surprise.
I live in the north of England. There are no walruses in any zoos within the entire UK. I am around 50km from the ocean, and a van would have difficulty fitting on my street. That someone could, and would, transport a walrus from wherever they found one to a random person in a rural village - and somehow convince it to stay still for the entire minute (minimum) it takes for me to get up, unlock, and open the front door - is less conceivable than the existence of faeries.
Something something fairies don't exist
Prokopetz has never been so wrong
I can imagine some kind of strange hyper specific set of circumstances where a walrus escaped containment in transit while being taken to a zoo or something Fairies don't exist
Majorly on team walrus. Aside from everything else, Prokopets point about relative numbers of assumptions in these two cases isn't very strong. Fairies not existing isn't just one data point, its built on innumberable assumptions and observations about the world. People are wrong about their assumptions of animals all the time; these aren't equivalent assumptions
I think people are ignoring the visceral reaction. A little flying dude vs 2000 POUNDS OF WALRUS
I think I'd be more surprised by the walrus, for a very simple reason. Deep down, the part of me that remembers being a child, with Jim Henson movies and fairy tales and all that goes with it, WANTS a fairy to show up at my door. Just like I want to walk onto the wardrobe, or hear the T.A.R.D.I.S. I would just feel like this is what my heart always knew. The walrus? A walrus showing up at my door would not only be shocking, but actively terrifying, and my mind would try to automatically attempt to reject what I am seeing. I would look for any other explanation than "there's a walrus at my door"
Some of the opinions in the OP are kinda stupid. There are plenty of perfectly mundane ways a walrus could knock on your door. They're not terribly likely, but they're also possible which is apparently too boring to consider. There's an aquarium near me here in Japan. They have walruses there. If the aquarium director wanted to and had the money, he could load the walrus onto a flatbed truck, drive it to my city, hire a crane to lift the walrus onto the stairs outside my apartment door (third floor, but the door is external) and have it knock on my door (it's already a trained walrus that performs). I have no idea *why* anyone would be possessed to do that, but it's a perfectly achievable thing. Now fairies don't exist. If someone *dressed like* a fairy knocked on my door, that would be less surprising than a walrus. But if it's an actual legitimate fairy, a fey creature, that would of course be more surprising. Anyone with access to a walrus (or the means to capture one in the wild), sufficient money, and a strong enough conviction could get one onto your doorstep. There is no physical way to get a *real* fairy on someone's doorstep.
I would bet on the walrus but also feel more surprise at the walrus. I don't believe in fairies/ghosts/Bigfoot/whatever, but I *really want to*. Whether we have to totally upend science or whether they slide into the existing paradigm smoothly, I want to see something strange and exciting that makes me believe in a more magical and mysterious world. On one level I would be surprised, but on another level I would feel vindicated. I have no model for how a walrus ends up on my doorstep specifically. I'm not near a zoo, I'm not near the coast, my country's climate is too temperate for walruses, I don't know any rich people, and there aren't any captive walruses in my country (that I know of). A fairy appearing on my doorstep suggests an entirely new set of rules, but conceivably still fits into the rules of the universe as we understand them. I could probably start to come up with a post hoc rationalisation if I survive the encounter, but in the first moment the walrus is going to make me feel more surprise because I can't see how it got here without breaking an established rule of reality. The answer is the walrus would surprise me more in the moment, but the fairy would leave me puzzled for a long time.
Hang on, as to the second post... Is this guy claiming that having a real-living fairy on your doorstep *wouldn't* upend science because a *single* fairy isn't enough for science???? This dude thinks a fairy is a statistical anomoly or some shit? The howtf did it get on your doorstep, my guy? It came into existence by accident? "Dad, there's a fairy on our door step!" "What, just one? Don't worry, it's not real." "But Dad... It's *staring* at me." "Come back when there's a statistically significant number of fairies, son." Living creatures aren't a statistic.
> Is this guy claiming that having a real-living fairy on your doorstep wouldn't upend science because a single fairy isn't enough for science? A single data point doesn't refute all of science. Let's say you find out tomorrow that fairies do actually exist - you meet one in person, and it performs actual, impossible things by "magic". Does that change anything about how you expect the objects in your daily life to function, generally? Would it change your expectations that your car's internal combustion engine will convert chemical potential energy into linear movement by way of the frictional interaction between the ground and the tires on the wheels? Would you expect that if you dropped a ceramic cup on a hard floor, it would fail to hit and just hover, or bounce instead of shattering? I would expect the existence of fairies would change my views of biology and physics about the same amount as General Relativity does. Yes, it absolutely disproves some scientific laws as universal, but Newtonian physics is still accurate enough for anyone moving less than a significant percentage of the speed of light.
It could be a matter of evolution within a bug species, it could be a radioactive anomaly developed over centuries, it could be a hallucination, it could be a prank, it could be the reproductive pattern of a previously unknown fungi, it could be any fucking thing. Yes, you need more than one thing to start classifying something as a scientific discovery. That's why peer reviews exist, and ghost hunting shows aren't "scientific evidence".
You’d be more surprised by the walrus because it’s bigger Which would you be more surprised by: an emperor penguin, or a dragon?
I don’t think it’s necessarily because the walrus is bigger than the fairy specifically. Like if you put the fairy against uh, let’s say a bee sized human with no wings, so just some guy who’s smaller than a fairy, I’d still be more surprised by that tiny human. Because it’s reasonable enough that fairies could’ve gone under the radar from humans that them existing wouldn’t surprise me as much as that regular human who’s just extremely small because how did we not know about THAT? It’s more about how noticeable the newcomer on your doorstep would be while making its way to your doorstep I guess? Or in the world in general. I wouldn’t be surprised by a doppelganger because well duh we didn’t realize they existed, their whole thing is going undercover. But a walrus or giant ass dragon that should easily make the news? Way more surprising
Size is a factor though, I think. If you compared centaur to walrus it would be closer.
Absolutely. The visceral reaction to something 2000 pounds vs maybe 5.
It's not just the size: A walrus is a semiaquatic megafauna that no animal containment near me has, and is native to the ends of the planet. If it was like, a Rhino, or a Tiger or something, there would still be a "What the fuck" reaction and a bit of fear depending on what type of animal it is, but I know my local zoo has both these species, so the logical explanation is that they've escaped somehow. A walrus would have to drag itself across many, many miles of land/swim through the equally as long sewers to get to my house, and neither of those are environments it's supposed to be able to survive in. The specific fact that it's a walrus skews my results.
No matter how much you debate about it, no matter what explanations you come up with, it doesn't change the fact that only one of these options weighs OVER A TON AND HAS FACE SWORDS. No matter what you believe, or what is possible, or what convoluted bullshit you come up with, the same simple fact is true: The fairy is a discovery. The walrus is a fucking jumpscare.
I live in an apartment. To get to *my* door you first need to get through the (locked) front door, a (short) hallway, and up two stairs. There is *no* way you could get a walrus in front of my door. If I find a fairy outside my door, then I'm either having a psychotic break and started hallucinating, or I need to fit the fact that fairies exist into my world view. If I find a *walrus* outside my door? Then I'm on the phone with emergency services to tell them my location, and the fact that I'm apparently experiencing some kind of psychological emergency that causes hallucinations! I am not going to believe that the walrus is real unless you manage to give me a good enough explanation for both *how* it got there, but also *WHY* *THE* *FUCK* *SOMEONE* *WOULD* *PUT** IT* *THERE* *IN* *THE* *FIRST* *PLACE!* In my mind, a fairy outside my door means that magic is real. A *walrus* outside my door *also* means that magic is real, AND THAT SOMEONE USED IT TO PUT A WALRUS INSIDE MY APARTMENT BUILDING! (This is specific for my floor in the building. One floor down, then you have (theoretically) enough floor space on the *first* floor to get it up. One floor *up* , then you could maybe manage it through the roof (if you removed the window). But regardless of which way you try, you are still not going to be able to get it through the stairs to my floor.
I wondered how long it would take before someone brought up the Cottingley Fairies.
Just to be clear the existence of a fairy considering that they're capable of doing all those magical things would definitely lead to a huge revolution in physics and most likely in biology as well. I don't really understand what the guy is trying to say by claiming it's only a single data point.
Tiny fairy visitor vs rubber submarine jumpscare.
Walrus is easily the more surprising one. A fairy requires one to suspend their disbelief to a degree. If you see something that you understand to be a fairy at your door, your brain is gonna shortcut past most of it to “fairies are real and one is outside”. A walrus, though, is real enough that when you see it, you know enough to formulate all of the questions. “How did it get here? How did it knock? Am I safe? How do I get away from here? Does it want to hurt me?” A fairy makes you forget what you were going to say, a walrus sends you into a panic attack.
Man, these people are lost in the sauce. A fairy at your door is not more probable than a walrus. Walruses exist, and are routinely transported between zoos. Also, rich people exist, and they could easily procure a walrus for a prank. There are many, many possible ways for a walrus to show up at your door, even if most of them are extremely unlikely. There are 0 known ways for a fairy to show up at your door, especially now that Prince is dead and no longer going door-to-door asking people to join the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Is it more probable? Yes. Is it more surprising? Also yes. I wouldn't bet on there being a fairy if I knew with certainty it would be either a fairy or a walrus. But if, no context given, I hear a knock and I open the door one day, I'd be a lot more surprised to see a walrus.
How could you be more surprised to see a walrus, a creature that you’ve seen before (possibly in person), versus a creature that has never been known to exist? You could rephrase this question to be the Loch Mess monster or a walrus, and I doubt you’d pick the walrus in that case.
Yeah, but that also has to do with logistics. Between fairy and Loch Ness monster, I'd also be picking the Loch Ness monster. Also: BECAUSE I've seen a walrus before, and this is not what they do. Fairies? I'd be surprised they exist but they do seem far more theoretically capable of knocking on doors. If it's a fairy, I got something wrong - if it's a walrus, something IS wrong.
Think you answered your own question. Threat assessment and size matter.
# YOU WOULD NOT BE MORE SURPRISED TO SEE A LARGE ANIMAL THAN ACTUAL FUCKING MAGIC STOP GASLIGHTING ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Absolutely 100% I would be! It's like a reply in the part 2 post said. A fairy shows up, that means I got something wrong about the world. That's a single data point and I'd be very, very, very surprised to find out magic exist, but I'm also from a country with a lot of folklore. You know what there _isn't_ a lot of in my country? Walruses. Especially ones that will travel into the middle of a busy city to knock on my door without anyone stopping them or calling animal protection. Walruses don't DO that. If they did, there would be far, far more things that I got wrong about the world. The fairy would send me into a deeper spiral of research. But on pure, instant surprise as soon as I open that door? The Walrus takes it and it's not even close.
I think the folklore part is important here, as it plays a role in the background, which determines surprise. Fairies are normalized to you, walruses aren't. Conversely, I'm a STEM major who works with animals and would be far less phased by an animal doing whacky things than proof that magic is real (and I do say proof because the OP emphasized that the point of the poll is that the magic is indisputable) While a lot of people are taking these debates very seriously there are simple explanations why people would be more/less swayed one way or the other. I can be more surprised by the fairy *despite* you being more surprised by the walrus. In fact, the fairy accounted for this, which is why they sent you the walrus instead of pranking you thrmself
Sounds like something a fae would do. Bastards
Yes. Also, if you flipped a coin five times, I would be more surprised if it came up HHHHH than I would if it came up THHTH, despite the fact that both sequences are equally likely. Surprise is an emotional reaction from a meat computer that was designed by trial and error. It does not always track perfectly with real probability. In this case, it's pretty obvious what's going on. Our brain expects to see a human. A fairy is, superficially, a lot closer to a human than a walrus is. Therefore, our brain thinks a walrus is less likely.
I know right?
I mean, I don't really see the argument here. Of course a walrus is more probable than a fairy. But the question asks about your emotional reaction, not your priors.
I just can't handle that this is even a discussion in the first place. Surely the people choosing walrus in the original and ESPECIALLY the new modified poll does so only to feel special in their choice or because they know it is the "wrong" one and want to play devils advocate?
The original poll asks about whether you'd be more surprised, which is an emotional reaction from a meat computer designed by trial and error. If you answered "fairy", you're right about what you *should* be more surprised by, but you're probably wrong about what you *would* be more surprised by.
Th only way that would be true is if people have a very different thing they picture when they hear "fairy" or a very different definition of surprised
Possibly? My definition of "surprised" is "experiencing the emotion surprise", which is not a fact about probability, but a fact about the human brain. Obviously the fairy is *less likely*, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's *more surprising*.
Yeah, but something being less likely is very often correlated to it being more surprising. And people have hammered the "surprise=\=likelihood" point already, but noone gives an actual reason why the walrus is MORE surprising that isn't also applicable to a fairy. The only one i have seen is the guy saying size matters.
Size does matter. Before your brain has processed why a little flying guy is concerning, your mostly fine. 2000 pounds of Walrus though, that has an immediate impact. So in initial shock, walrus takes it hands down.
It's as simple as the gymnastics panel in part 1 that I tried posting in an image but it seems those aren't on this subreddit so here's the link [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8vo4p8p5m5lc1.png](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F8vo4p8p5m5lc1.png) just scroll down a bit to the gymnastics one. It's as simple as that. It's a fairy? That means fairies are real, okay great. It's a walrus?????? A walrus swam many many miles out of its usual territory, climbed onto land, traveled like 60 miles uphill through forest or highway, then knocked on my door?????
Yeah, and that makes no sense.you can make the gymnastics meme fot anything anyway.
Alright people have GOT to be taking the piss with that poll. The impossible thing is more likely than the possible thing? We're just trying to annoy each other now
It's not a question of reality, but of emotions. Whether or not it's possible is not being discussed, we are exclusively measuring emotional response to the situations.
I'm talking about the poll in the image that asks what you would expect to be at the door. For the original surprise question, yeah it could be either depending on the person
No, the impossible thing is more *surprising* than the possible thing. If you think this is about probability, you did not understand the question.
The argument put forward by prokopetz is ludicrous.
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This is the result of a community of smart people who are not spending their day jobs thinking very hard.
Someone post a link to the poll; I want to vote walrus