ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant was the first thinker to posit a knowing self that preceded all environmental, empirical experience. Kant thought that something like a transcendental ego must exist to explain the coherence and directed focus of adult human consciousness. Just as the transcendental ego is a philosophically muddy concept, so the transcendental ego is a practically problematical talent. The transcendental ego is a mischief-maker because it is so prone to falsehood via its significant talent for invention. A good example of how logic works on the transcendental ego’s propensity to false belief is found in the formal analysis of dreaming inspired by the theory of isomorphism. The ego that emerges with the sense of agency is a brain function that comes to be associated with two kinds of consciousness. Just as the transcendental ego is a philosophically muddy concept, so the transcendental ego is a practically problematical talent.
