Sylvia Nasar
A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening

WVU’s Festival of Ideas kicked off with a lecture by Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, the biography of the mathematician John Nash.

Her talk was good—I think you could tell she was a writer—however her question and answer session was a tad bit rambling and disjointed. It seemed as if she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say as she was saying it. It was a somewhat disappointing finish to a good talk.

Her lecture was the life story of the mathematician John Nash. I would guess that she was chosen as the opening lecturer, because John Nash was born in Bluefield, West Virginia, so it seems only appropriate to kick of a West Virginia University lecture series with a talk about someone born in the state.

For those handful of people like myself who have neither seen the movie nor read the book, John Nash was a brilliant mathematician who developed debilitating schizophrenia at the age of 30, and by 90s it was assumed by most people that he was dead. What made his story so compelling, and what made Sylvia Nash want to write his story, is that he eventually overcame his mental illness, and won the Nobel Prize for his work in Game Theory on his Theory of Human Conflict and Cooperation (done prior to his illness). Although he made contributions in pure mathematics, his work in game theory influenced many different fields, such as economics, geometry, biology and political science.

She spoke little of his childhood in WV, other that to say he had eccentric amusements, but one can assume that he probably did not fit in. She also never mentions whether he returns home, so one is left to assume that after leaving the state he does not return. But I’d be pleased to be proven wrong.

Although the mathematics are beyond me, I found the description of Game Theory quite interesting. Initially it was worked as a zero sum game, but John Nash focused upon the more realistic concept, of a non-zero sum game, when there can be a gain for both sides, and also in a theory involving multiple players. This of course made Game Theory applicable to the real world, especially in his description of the equilibrium point, or the theoretical set of circumstance where everyone involved has done their best and is satisfied with the outcome. The whole idea of being able to derive logical rules about human behavior is quite fascinating, as we humans do not particularly care to see ourselves as predictable entities.

One interesting point she brought up, is that when Nash was asked why someone so logical could believe such strange and outlandish ideas, Nash replied that his schizophrenic ideas came to him the same way that his mathematical ideas did. It would have been interesting if she had further addressed this point—is there a relationship between madness and genius? I would also be curious as to whether he would have been willing to give up his genius if that would have meant a normal life.

Sylvia Nash emphasized that the story of John Nash was in fact a love story, and she discussed how Alisha remained with John throughout his illness, despite their divorce and his institutionalization, and she seemed to be saying that it was Alisha who led the way for his eventual recovery, in her believe that Bash’s only hope was to live in a community where at least a few people knew who he had been.

Although that is interesting, I don’t find the love story nearly as compelling as the questions brought up by his madness. Are madness and genius linked? Can you cure one while leaving the other? What was it that allowed John Nash to recover from his schizophrenia later in life? Yes, it is believed that the biological changes of aging have some influence, but what other components affect this? Could these biological changes be studied to determine what leads to the onset of schizophrenia and what causes it to go into remission.

All interesting points, and perhaps ones that will be address by someone else some other time.