Confessions of a Split Mind - Paul Kiritsis - Bog

Confessions of a Split Mind is a compendium of selected drawings, philosophical dialogues, and two myths from Kiritsis's personal journal. Collectively, they capture an internal conflict between differing aspects of the conceptual self, which plays out in every one of us. For the author, this phenomenon takes the form of an ongoing war between science and esoteric spirituality. In the author's idiosyncratic inner world, the former discipline is personified by a male character known as the Unknown Pilot and the latter by a female character, Solim. The integrated conscious self also appears in the guise of a character named Olyn.

These three entities bide their time grappling with the big questions in life and arguing over the veracity of existing interpretations: Is it possible to explain genius-level creativity through contemporary scientific models? What exactly are the "voices" that psychosis sufferers hear? What is precognition, and what does it mean for a linear, materialistic model of the universe? Does free will exist? Have we underestimated the powers of the placebo and the mind? How much do we really know about the brain? Is it really like a computer as computational and connectionist models would have us believe? How therapeutic are creative pursuits? Does anything survive the death of the human body?

Each chapter deals with a different topic and is illustrated by thematic drawings. Many of the conundrums and life mysteries expounded in the broader narrative are represented visually in a separate section in the middle of the book, entitled "Interlude: A Journey through the Split Mind."

The book begins and ends with the narration of personal myths whose purpose is to convey images of an ostensibly paradoxical world as it would appear to our logical operative cognition and the either-or logic we pride ourselves on, hold aloft, and deem infallible.