"Now what the hell's the matter with me?" thought Paul Wendell. He could
feel nothing. Absolutely nothing: No taste, no sight, no hearing, no
anything. "Am I breathing?" He couldn't feel any breathing. Nor, for
that matter, could he feel heat, nor cold, nor pain.
"Am I dead? No. At least, I don't _feel_ dead. Who am I? What am I?" No
answer. _Cogito, ergo sum._ What did that mean? There was something
quite definitely wrong, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. Ideas
seemed to come from nowhere; fragments of concepts that seemed to have
no referents. What did that mean? What is a referent? A concept? He felt
he knew intuitively what they meant, but what use they were he didn't
know.
There was something wrong, and he had to find out what it was. And he
had to find out through the only method of investigation left open to
him.
So he thought about it.