經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第18章3
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?
對於一隻鯨魚來說，這並不是一個很正常的位置，所以這隻可憐的無辜生物並沒有多少時間建立起自己作爲一隻鯨魚的身份認同，反倒建立起了自己不再是一隻鯨魚的身份認同。
這樣的想法從它誕生那一刻起便貫穿它整個的一生，直到它的生命結束。
啊……發生了什麼？它想。
嗯，先等等，我是誰？
有人嗎？
我爲什麼會在這裏？我生活的目標是什麼？
我問“我是誰”時是什麼意思？
冷靜，現在試着去理解……嘿！這種感覺真有趣，是什麼？這是……打哈欠，一種麻刺的感覺在我的……我的……對了，我想我最好先給東西命名，這樣我才能討論身邊的這個世界，就把這個部位叫做我的胃吧。
太好了。喔，它變得這麼強壯。嘿，我該把這種呼嘯着經過我靈機一動稱爲頭的那部分的聲音叫做什麼呢？或許我可以把它叫做……風！這是個好名字嗎？應該算吧……或許等弄清楚它是幹什麼的之後我能爲它想到一個更好的名字。它一定是種相當重要的東西，因爲看起來這裏有很多這玩意兒。嘿！這又是什麼？這是……就叫做尾巴吧……是的，尾巴。嘿！我能夠很靈活地擺動它，不是嗎？喔！喔！感覺真爽！看上去沒什麼太大的用處，不過以後我會弄明白的。現在，我是不是已經建立起關於這些東西的一個連貫的體系了呢？
還沒有。
沒關係，嘿，這真是太讓我興奮了，有這麼多東西要去尋找，有這麼多東西值得期待，我簡直眼花繚亂了……
這是風嗎？
