Surprise! Surprise!
An Essay on Information, Rarity, and the Power of the Unexpected
We live in an age flooded with information. Notifications buzz, headlines scroll, and our feeds refresh endlessly. Yet, ironically, much of what we consume carries little true information. Why? Because we already expect it. The weather forecast, political commentary, or another celebrity scandal—these are not surprising. And as information theorist Claude Shannon revealed decades ago, information is not just about data—it’s about surprise.
In information theory, the concept of “information content” is tightly linked to probability. The rarer a message is, the more information it carries. That’s why hearing “the sun rose today” tells us almost nothing—it happens every day. But hearing “a penguin just walked into your kitchen” instantly demands our full attention. It violates expectations. It shocks us. It informs us in the truest sense.
Let’s take a simple example: flipping a coin. If someone tells you the result of a fair coin flip, the message contains one bit of information—it could go either way. But what if someone flips a loaded coin that lands heads 99% of the time? Now, being told it landed tails is far more surprising—and thus more informative. That’s the paradox: the less likely an event, the more signal it carries when it occurs.
Consider how this plays out in storytelling. A plot twist that no one saw coming—like Darth Vader revealing he is Luke’s father—carries immense information. It’s memorable precisely because it defies expectations. Contrast that with a movie where the hero predictably saves the day. It may be entertaining, but its informational impact is low.
In our personal lives, too, surprise often signals importance. A friend saying “I’m getting married” when you had no clue they were dating—that shocks and informs. But if they’d been talking about their partner for months, the same statement would carry less informational weight. Context, expectation, and probability shape how we experience meaning.
Even in science, progress often hinges on the unexpected. Think of the apple falling on Newton’s head. Or the curious wobble in Uranus’s orbit that hinted at the existence of Neptune. In each case, an anomaly—a surprise—triggered a leap in understanding.
So what does this mean for how we live? Perhaps it’s a reminder to cherish the rare, to seek novelty, and to notice the unusual. It’s easy to become numb to the expected, to scroll past the predictable. But when something truly surprises us, we should pause. Because hidden within that shock is the precious currency of real information.
In the end, not all messages are created equal. Some merely echo what we already know. Others—the rare, the strange, the unexpected—open new doors in our minds. They break the pattern. They leave an imprint.
They say: Surprise! Surprise!
And suddenly, we understand something new.
