@Olivier5,
Quote:I HAVE proof of my existence. think therefore I am. There's no way around it. You might question the 'I' but just say it's the name we all give to our individual mental space.
yes, i am questioning the 'i'. i agree its just a name for mental space, but the word INDIVIDUAL mental space is an assumption on your part. you cannot be sure that your consciousness is entirely your own, because it is infinite. it leaves you beyond your own control in sleep. things go in in your subconscious constantly which you have no idea about. your consciousness, as you experience it, is always vastly more active than what your individual attention knows about.
Quote:In other words, it is a proven fact, as far as 'I' am concerned, that there exists at least one mental space (mine, but others are welcome Smile), within which events such as thinking, imagining, or remembering actually happen. And you know what? I have also good reason to believe I am not alone...
i agree that one mental space is 'proven' by experience. events such as thinking appear to happen, defining it as ACTUALLY is your own choice, and never verifiable.
you have good reason to believe you are not alone, if you assume duality, and separate things existing. this naturally drops away when you investigate further. even physics proves that the entire universe is interconnected particles and energy. nothing is separate in the universe physically. why would mental space be any different? the entire mental space is one interconnected universe also, the same universe as the physical one. this is pure conjecture on my part, but i experience it as such.
Quote:Nope. Absence of proof is not proof of absence. The dog will never catch his tail, not because his tail is a ghost or an illusion, but because he is physically unable to do so. Like him, you'll never 'catch your consciousness' because you are mentally unable to 'think' more than two levels of thought at any given time (levels 0 and 1 in my taxonomy), aka one level of consciousness in your terminology.
i agree that absence of proof is not proof of absence. BUT COMPLETE ABSENCE is proof of absence.
i am not saying i can 'catch my consciousness', i am saying that in chasing the source of consciousness, the observer becomes more and more subtle, as you go past the 'levels' you talk about.
so for you, level 0, i think. then level 1 i hear what i think. then level 2 i sense the hearing of what i think.
you think it stops there, anything more is impossible. but the levels go on infinitely. what changes is the observer's subtlety. see, when you are only sensing the hearing of what you think, what you are in that moment is such a subtle nothingness almost. then, if you try and go further, you have to become even more subtle to notice what it is that is noticing.
the process of noticing more and more subtlety in your own consciousness is seen as a neverending process. within the experience of attempting, you get closer and closer to 'becoming nothing'. at a certain point the 'nothingness' becomes totally apparent as the only primary existence, and this is what i mean about COMPLETE ABSENCE.
an individual thinker can never understand complete absence, because it is only apparent when the thinker is still.
), within which events such as thinking, imagining, or remembering actually happen. And you know what? I have also good reason to believe I am not alone... 
