This is not an episode from a Preston Sturgis comedy, but the actual procedure through which Russell T. Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel produced their remarkable book, "Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic." The premise is so ludicrous that it might seem impossible for anything to come of it, but this underestimates the skill of the authors, particularly Schwitzgebel, the philosopher, whose talent for straight-faced mischief has been displayed in his some of his other writing. For instance, his Web site contains a draft of a recent paper titled "Do Ethicists Steal More Books?" which examines data from leading academic libraries to show that professional ethicists are more likely than other people to behave badly. As Schwitzgebel sums up his research, he found that "contemporary (post-1959) ethics books were actually about 25% more likely to be missing than non-ethics books. When the list was reduced to the relatively obscure books most likely to be borrowed exclusively by professional ethicists and advanced students of ethics, ethics books were almost 50% more likely to be missing."

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Day traders say you become an investor when your trade goes very wrong. You buy 1,000 shares, the price plummets and suddenly you start telling yourself that UBID is a "great value" that is sure to rise significantly "over time." But the opposite is also true. An investor can become a day trader when his or her trade goes unexpectedly right.

You buy some obscure stock that your cousin told you about, it quadruples and you can't stand to hang on to it any more, so you take your profits. Now what are you going to do with all that cash? It's already sitting in your trading account. Scores of "bargains" are flashing before your eyes every day. Come on. Just make one trade. One little purchase, just for the heck of it. There you go. Now how do you feel? Not so good, right? A little nervous? In fact, kind of panicky? Look, your stock is already up a quarter point. Little beads of sweat are breaking out on your upper lip. You are mouthing words, but no sound is coming out. That's OK, because now it's time to sell. Go ahead, sell it. Sell! SELL!

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What an American twist: This advanced experiment with publicizing an entire life takes place not with a prisoner or subversive who is captured, humiliated and executed nor with an artist, but rather with the leader of our country. The official record shows President Clinton's every call. The investigators have his schedule down to the minute; they know every visitor; they also have all Monica Lewinsky's calls and her pager record; they have done a blood test, a DNA analysis and identified his semen from a 2-year-old ejaculation; they know everything he purchased for her and everything he received. They have organized the information in convenient form and broadcast it to the world. In Times Square, his interrogation became an element of urban design.

Something like this will happen to you.

Not on such a grand scale, of course -- the ambition, intelligence, access to wealth, narcissism and good luck of a Bill Clinton are granted to only a few people in every generation. But Clinton's martyrdom to total surveillance foreshadows the fate of the "little guy." You may never be addressed fondly by the charming intern at the office, you may have lips uncontaminated by illicit love -- or by love of any kind. But the past will haunt you anyway.

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