A valid proof of the reality of the self: read our competition winner

Plus cultists in denial about the obvious deterioration of their hero: Parts 28 and 29 of The Demon Inside David Lynch

Photo by David Todd McCarthy

A complimentary lifetime sub is on its way to Thaddeus Thomas, the only reader to date who’s met the non-circular part of the following challenge:

Do you know a valid (non-circular) justification for the existence of the self?

Here’s his answer:

I may not exist. My world may not exist, and this non-existing world may be experienced through the context of this non-existing self. Yet, even if a non-entity hallucinates a non-entity, the reality it proves is the existence of the hallucination—the thought.

The thought exists but perhaps not the “I” who thought it.

Therefore, thought is real, and we’ll define thought as the experience of the self and other, whether or not these things exist. Thought becomes the active subject. It is aware, whether the subject and object of its awareness are real or not. We’ll define this thinking awareness (which experiences the presumption of self and world) as consciousness. Consciousness is therefore real. Everything of which it …