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> My 2&#194;&#162;-I, too, find it impossible to engage meaningfully in any discussion wherein our own consciousness is questioned or doubted; it feels like the revocation of our license to question or doubt things, including said consciousness. The circle is a pleasing shape in general, but not as regards logic. -This is almost the Ren&#195;&#169; Descartes undying classic [i]"Cogito, ergo sum,"[/i] where my thinking logically requires my existence: in the land where words mean things, doubting something entails the [i]a priori[/i] consciousness of what is being doubted. In fact it seems to go even deeper, since I MIGHT really not exist but only be [i]imagined[/i] to exist by some other mind; however, can I REALLY not be conscious, if I&apos;m either really considering or imagining I&apos;m considering the question of whether I&apos;m conscious? Am I supposed to accept the possibility that some other mind may be [i]imagining [/i]that my mind is doubting my consciousness? And if so, how would I be conscious of accepting that possibility--is that being imagined for me, too? Moreover, how could my so-called acceptance or rejection of the possibility have any validity, if I&apos;m not really even conscious of the two options in the first place and am, therefore, unable to deliberate between them? Anyway, if it&apos;s OK for the mind of this hypothetical grand imaginer to have consciousness, why not my own? The questions possess the thought-destroying potential of koans.-I wouldn&apos;t necessarily go as far as labeling someone who does undertake to question their own consciousness as being on the "epistemological high horse", regardless of how catchy I might find that phrase--that is, unless they stubbornly stick to it in an apparent gambit to look hip or to effectively make the discussion difficult or impossible. What would be the point? -We&apos;re all conscious of having better things to do.