title: [Giving up life in the labyrinth].
abstract: A brief historic survey of the labyrinth, from prehistoric images carved in stone, to gardens, Renaissance drawings and architectonic constructions will presented. The metaphor of the labyrinths, which began with Theseus killing the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne, can be applied to all: scientific investigation, artistic creation, wickedness, theology ... to life. In these eculiar and chaotic designs, structural simplicity and functional complexity coincide and therefore may produce repeated erroneous decisions. To wander successfully through these labyrinths, caution and repeated decision-makings are required to enable the traveller to reach the desired and elusive center. In each instant, decisions are made in our mind as a consequence of complex cerebral systems, activated by stimuli which originate in the intimate regions of the mind, the most complex labyrinth of all. These types of mental labyrinths are immaterial, without paths or walks, where each successive decision made facing multiple bifurcations, causes the mental traveller to advance until reaching the center. This center deceptively becomes the entrance to another of the innumerable and unknown mental labyrinths that the intimate life proposes.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Portera Sánchez
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D008606:Mental Processes; D019365:Metaphor; D009229:Mythology; D013850:Thinking
vernacular_title: Dejar de vivir en el laberinto.