It is important to note that suddenly, and
against all probability, a sperm whale had
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 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 suddenly
not being a whale any more. This is what
it thought as it fell.
“Ahhhh!!!! What's happening? Excuse me! Who
am I? Hello? Why am I here? What's my
purpose in life? What do I mean by who am
I? What is this 'I' that I want to know
what it is? Calm down, get a grip now ...
ooh! This is an interesting sensation...
Oh! This is an interesting sensation,
what is it? It's a sort of... yawning,
tingling sensation in ... 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 now.
And hey, what's 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 give it a better name
later when I've found out what it's for!
It must be very important because there
certainly seems to be an awful lot of it.
Hey! What's this thing ... this ... let's call
it a tail - yeah! Tail!
Hey! I can really thrash it about pretty
good, can't I? Wow! Wow! Doesn't seem to
achieve much but I'll probably find out
what it's for later on. How. Have I built
up a coherent picture of things yet?
No. Never mind. Hey, this is really
exciting, so much to find out about, ao
much to look forward to, I'm quite dizzy
with anticipation ... Or is it the wind?
There really is an awful lot of that now,
isn't there?
And hey! What's this thing coming
suddenly coming towards me very fast, so
big and flat and round it needs a big
wide-sounding name like ... ow ... ound...round
... ground! That's it, ground! I wonder if
it'll be friends with me?”
Curiously, the only thing that went
through the mind of the bowl of petunias
as it fell was "Oh no, not again."
Many have speculated that if we knew why
the bowl of petunias had thought that we
would know a lot more about the nature of
the Universe than we do now.