Quote:Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.
And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.
This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.
Ah
! What's happening? it thought.
Er, excuse me, who am I?
Hello?
Why am I here? What's my purpose in life?
What do I mean by who am I?
Calm down, get a grip now
oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? It's a sort of
yawning, tingling sensation in my
my
well I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach.
Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what's about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that
wind! Is that a good name? It'll do
perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What's this thing? This
let's call it a tail - yeah, tail. Hey! I can can really thrash it about pretty good can't I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn't seem to achieve very much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now - have I built up any coherent picture of things yet?
No.
Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy with anticipation
Or is it the wind?
There really is a lot of that now isn't it?
And wow! Hey! What's this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like
ow
ound
round
ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground!
I wonder if it will be friends with me?
So, you see, reason, friendship -- these things should be avoided at all costs. And so I repeat unto you: kick... it... in... the... sack.
