A scientist was boasting about his abilities to plumb the heavens. With just the light that fell on earth, he said, he could read the inner workings of far-off stars and read the mysteries of the beginning of creation.

The jealous gods heard him.

All in one night he was caught up and brought to a lab in a special place. His mind was wiped of all he knew, save only how to research, and he was brought over and over many specimens of dead animals to research. The dead animals were the only data he had. You may imagine, if you like, that the instruments were commanded by his mind and gave him an angle of view such that he could never observe and study the other instruments. You may imagine, if you like, that he was invisible to himself and had no knowledge of his own flesh except his own consciousness.

He has been there many a year. He knows things about anatomy that our own science has not discovered. But he doesn’t know the purpose of any of the the things he discovered. He still doesn’t know that these specimens are dead, and that there is another state called life.