What is the True Nature of Reality? This volume contains ten essays written over two decades, exploring different aspects of Subjective Reality and connection to the Deep Self. Join philosoher, ethicist and educator, Dr. Dara Fogel for a mind-bending yet approachable adventure through the theoretical, historical and experiential underpinnings of the Nature of Personal Identity and Experience. Some of this material has been previously published online at Dr. Fogel’s popular website, www.province-of-the-mind.com, but much has never been published or made publically available until now. The true nature of reality is a question that every thinking person has grappled with at some point in their life. Subjective Reality - Are You In or Out? seeks answers to the perennial existential questions of Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is Real, and how can I know for sure? Fogel draws inspiration from a wide array of sources both ancient and modern, from Plato to Jung to the bizarre extremes of quantum physics in her attempts to articulate the ineffable. Book Excerpt: Subjective Reality only takes as real what it experiences first-hand, since external or Objective Reality is not seen as reliable, coming from second-hand sources. This approach is also known as Gnosticism - the seeking of direct knowledge (Gnosis), rather than accepting external reports as knowledge without personal experience. It is just as impossible to provide proof of the validity of Subjective Reality as it is to prove Objective Reality, as any proof I could give would just be a second-hand report, not your own first-hand experience. Subjective Reality is necessarily gnostic - that is, it is based in personal experience. You are never asked to take anything on faith in Subjective Reality. In fact, as the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, it is your job to explore your world and discover Truth for yourself. No one can give this to you, and if they could, you wouldn’t want someone else’s regurgitated Truth. If a second-hand Truth would suffice, you would not be interested in learning more about Subjective Reality…
