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John R. Lunise
2/8 near Recolle
On the subject of horses, allow me to ask you a question: When you were a child, what was the name of the bear family who taught valuable life lessons in easily digestible books?
Chances are, you answered 'the Berenstein Bears'. And, as it happens, that is incorrect; it is the Berenstain Bears.
How can everyone misremember this? How can something so patently true turn out to be terribly false? Some people will tell you it is the 'Mandela effect', named after a shockingly large number of people believed Nelson Mandela died in prison... but simple mass misremembering is a fairly boring answer, isn't it?
Consider instead a possibility physics allows us: that infinite universes exist, that every possibility spawns a diverging universe. Consider then that these different universes must be ruled by mathematics and science, that were were able to observe them, some concrete, tangible difference must exist to distinguish them.
Consider also that the laws of physics as we know them are, in some cases, simply and utterly inoperable. The quantum scale, for example. Or a naked singularity. It is, therefore, conceivable that through some quirk of physics, some awesome miracle... we have merged or shifted into a world in which horses never existed, and chocobos always did.
Impossible, you say, and perhaps rightly so... but I have no better explanation.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Alice Penelope Drake You're absolutely right, Professor.
Alice Penelope Drake That's the only explanation for people believing it was always Berenstain.

Matt Miller a letter change is easy to transpose. an entire species is a trans-dimensional shift on a completely different level
Matt Miller this would have to be some incredibly strong anomaly we're dealing with if you're right

Caroline Banks Wouldn't that require there to be "original" versions of ourselves whom we displaced?

Yukiko Amagi I was going to say Yogi Bear and Booboo...

John R. Lunise I find it somewhat more comforting than the idea that horses are a figment of my imagination.

[There's a long moment as Alicia reads this that she's not entirely sure how to respond to it. It resonates, kind of, and it's really weird, but it isn't necessarily... wrong?]

Alicia Clover It would be impossible to say it's, well, impossible. There isn't enough information to disprove such a theory. Although I feel a little uncomfortable that we've experienced such a once-in-a-lifetime event to replace equines with massive birds. And why us? Why now? There are too many variables. That's... not a scientifically sound experiment.

John R. Lunise When you consider all other aspects of life appear to be the same? It is a simple transposition of X to Y, with precedent in historical (or archaeological) records.
John R. Lunise Bird of this size and ferocity existed in prehistory; would it be so great a distortion of record for them to have persisted and been domesticated in place of horses, who instead died out?
John R. Lunise With all else being equal, we're looking at a mild tweak to one number in an infinitely complex formula.

John R. Lunise And quite possibly they exist in our prior universe, wondering what these large strange animals are that replaced chocobos.

John R. Lunise Their life lessons were less prosocial and more how to get away with larceny by virtue of ursine nature.

John R. Lunise Unfortunately, you are correct; it is a plausible but nontestable hypothesis, which I offer only as a potential explanation.
John R. Lunise We lack another one, after all.

Alicia Clover I'm uncertain I want to have another - either it means we'd have another case of something fundamental about our world changing, or something even more unusual is going on.
Alicia Clover Both are unpleasant thoughts. Particularly when considering that, as with this change, another could happen without warning. We might not even know something had happened to start with!

John R. Lunise Consider this: these changes may be happening constantly, affecting such trivial things that we never know about them.
John R. Lunise Imagine that at this moment, we merge into a universe in which an ancient Roman soldier began a march with his left foot instead of his right.
John R. Lunise We would never, could not possibly, know the change happened.

Alicia Clover I feel like there's a word for that phenomena, but I don't remember it at the moment. Still, I understand what you mean.
Alicia Clover But it seems like another matter entirely when it's a huge change that ripples through space and time. All Papa's old westerns have chocobos on their covers, now.
Alicia Clover I think most of all, I fear the change coming to me, myself - to have something happen that fundamentally changes who I am. I happen to like who I am now, I don't want to change.

Dirk Strider I'd buy it if it weren't for the fact that the transposition doesn't make sense.
Dirk Strider Sure, we could slip from a universe with horses to a universe where chocobos evolved instead.
Dirk Strider But we don't have a universe where chocobos evolved. Not in a way that makes sense.
Dirk Strider The biology texts should say that chocobos evolved from some chicken ancestor. They shouldn't say they're of the genus Equus and mate with donkeys to make mules.
Dirk Strider That isn't an alternate universe.
Dirk Strider It is, straight-up, a shitty job doing find + replace.

Yukiko Amagi Yes. But those are still lessons. From bears.

Yukiko Amagi Anyway. Horses. You think they're real, right?

Jack Dawes heads up i got halfway through and kind of glazed over
Jack Dawes but i'm gonna need some of that weed you're smoking

Rachel Hishimura There's the title of a children's book being different from what everyone remembers, and there's the replacement of an entire species.

Edited 2017-02-09 05:55 (UTC)

Jyushimatsu Ono Huh! WOW!
Jyushimatsu Ono So if we shifted worlds, doesn't that mean that there could be a world out there that's missing us right now? LOL I wonder if anyone notices we're gone!
Jyushimatsu Ono Maybe we were replaced by chocobos too!

Edited 2017-02-09 11:11 (UTC)

John R. Lunise The question is: if you changed, would you know?

John R. Lunise That may very well be, since of course it is possible if not probable that we are living in a simulated reality.
John R. Lunise But since all of this is untestable, we have to ask what fits the available evidence, and in the absence of any other factors, what we prefer to believe.

Surei Doushi it was always the Berenstain Bears.
Surei Doushi Mikleo and I argued about this for two hours once before I looked up the books. I guess not everyone has photographic memory though
Surei Doushi that said, things are really weird lately and I wouldn't discredit your theory too much. it feels like we're part of some prank but my mother swears up and down she has no idea what I'm talking about.
Surei Doushi people can pretend they don't know what horses are but it's a little harder to make up an animal and then... you know... have it exist

John R. Lunise I remember them with a clarity and persistence that I find it very difficult to write off as a mere quirk of my brain.

John R. Lunise Quantum mechanics is a much better brain-melter than any chemical or herbal substance you can ask for.
John R. Lunise Except possibly salvia, I've heard some stories.

John R. Lunise On the cosmic scale, both differences are utterly trivial, you know.

John R. Lunise Most probably, several confused counterparts of ours are wondering what these 'horse' beasts are that have replaced their beloved chocobos.

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