经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第25章5

"Alright!" bawled Vroomfondel banging on an nearby desk. "I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!"
"No we don't!" exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. "That is precisely what we don't demand!"
Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, "We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
"But who the devil are you?" exclaimed an outraged Fook.
"We," said Majikthise, "are Philosophers."
"Though we may not be," said Vroomfondel waving a warning finger at the programmers."Yes we are," insisted Majikthise. "We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off now!"
"What's the problem?" said Lunkwill.
"I'll tell you what the problem is mate," said Majikthise, "demarcation, that's the problem!"
"We demand," yelled Vroomfondel, "that demarcation may or may not be the problem!"
"You just let the machines get on with the adding up," warned Majikthise, "and we'll take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we? I mean what's the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us his bleeding phone number the next morning?"
"That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
Suddenly a stentorian voice boomed across the room.
"Might I make an observation at this point?" inquired Deep Thought.
"We'll go on strike!" yelled Vroomfondel.
"That's right!" agreed Majikthise. "You'll have a national Philosopher's strike on your hands!"
The hum level in the room suddenly increased as several ancillary bass driver units, mounted in sedately carved and varnished cabinet speakers around the room, cut in to give Deep Thought's voice a little more power.
"All I wanted to say," bellowed the computer, "is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything -" he paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone's attention, before continuing more quietly, "but the programme will take me a little while to run."
Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.
"How long?" he said.

“好吧！”卢姆方德尔骂了一声，重重地一拳砸在身边的一张桌子上，“我是卢姆方德尔，这不是声明，而是纯粹的事实！我们所要求的就是纯粹的事实！”
“不，我们不是！”曼吉克塞斯恼怒地说，“这可不是我们所要求的！”
几乎没有换气，卢姆方德尔嚷道：“我们不要求纯粹的事实！我们所要求的是不要纯粹的事实。我要求我可能是也可能不是卢姆方德尔！”
“见鬼了，那你到底是谁？”福克忍无町忍。
“我们，”曼吉克塞斯说，“是哲学家。”
“虽然我们也可能不是。”卢姆方德尔说，一边朝程序员们警告似的挥舞着手指。‘“是的，我们是哲学家。”曼吉克塞斯坚持道，“我们到这儿来的目的很明确，作为哲学家、智者、先知以及其他思想者的联合工会的代表，我们希望关闭这台机器，我们希望现在立即关闭它！”
“出了什么问题呢？”朗克维尔问。
“我会告诉你出了什么问题的，伙计。”曼吉克塞斯说，“分工，这就是问题所在！”
“我们要求，”卢姆方德尔又开始嚷嚷了，“分工可能是也可能不是问题所在！”
“你们尽管让这些机器开着吧，”曼吉克塞斯警告说，“谢谢你们。但永恒真理归我们负责。你们想要查询你们的法律地位吗，那就请便吧，伙计。根据法律，追寻终极真理很显然是你们中间的我们这些思想者们不可剥夺的特权。要是有任何该死的机器真的找到了它，那我们岂不是直截了当地失业了，不是吗？我的意思是，我们一直争论到半夜到底有没有上帝，可要是这台机器第二天一早就把上帝该死的电话号码给了你，我们的工作还有什么用？”
“太对了。”卢姆方德尔叫道，“我们严正声明，要求严格将怀疑和不确定的领域划归我们！”
突然间，一个洪亮的声音在屋内响起。
“我能就这个问题说几句吗？”深思要求道。
“我们要组织罢工！”卢姆方德尔叫道。
“太对了！”曼吉克塞斯附和道，“你们将会引发全国性的哲学家罢工！”
房间里的嗡嗡声突然增大。环绕房间的几个辅助性的低音音箱被打开了，用来增加深思的声音的响度。
“我想说的是，”电脑咆哮着说，“我的电路现在已经无法撤销地开始计算关于生命、宇宙和一切的终极问题的答案。”它顿了一下，对于自己现在已经成功地引起了所有人的注意感到很满意，于是降低了音量，“但是运行这个程序将会稍微花费我一点儿时间。”
福克迫不及待地瞟了一眼他的手表。
“需要多久？”他问。