A Beautiful Mind. Chapter 36, page 256: “Dry Breaks in Bowditch Hall”
I have started reading A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar. It’s a biography of John Nash and his well developed mathematical mind. The image that I try conveying in this post will be clearer if you have read the book. It’s by no means a prerequisite, but a strong suggestion. If anything, it runs like a great novel and is one of the best biographies I have read (granted, I haven’t read that many).
John Forbes Nash is put in a mental institution because his peers believe he has gone insane with conspiracy theories and patterns in society. Most of the contemporary psychiatrists wants to use shock treatment or drugs as ways of “rehabilitation”. In the mental institution where John Nash is sent, there are a lot of other individuals, one of these is the brilliant poet Robert Lowell. Lowell was also put in the mental hospital, but because “he believed he had written John Milton’s ‘Lycidas'”. Lowell, having been appointed Poet Laureate and written a great deal of poetry, he had, like Nash had acquired pattern recognition in math, acquired pattern recognition in the english language, poetry and its esotericism.
The sad part is not that Lowell believed that it was true that he had written Milton’s works. Because he had. I have reached a limit in my ability to explain myself in words. Especially when it comes to something I have not experienced myself. It is also a strange thing to try to explain, that requires great delicacy, so not to alienate yourself from people you are speaking to. It takes guts to be that honest. I doubt I have experience to be so brave as to suggest it, so I will say it how others have said it in order to explain what position Lowell was in. So many have described the same thing: a sort of merge with the energy around them. Some have called it “one with god”, but then they speak not of god as a person to feel connected to, but a feeling of being with everything (because god is a name for everything), others call synergy. Whether this comes from extensive introspection, or pattern recognition, I have no idea. But what I do know is society’s reaction to people who claim to have reached this state. They either kill them or lock them up. Then, society makes them into symbols of worship, but shun contemporary individuals who experience it, as well. Lowell was sent to a mental institution because he thought he had written Milton’s “Lycidas”. In our current point of view, “Lowell” did not physically write Milton’s “Lycidas”. But from a synergetic point of view, he did. If it is a matter of pattern recognition or just spiritual (I do hate that word) experience I don’t know. But if it was pattern recognition it surely was coupled with empathy. For Lowell had to put himself in Milton’s shoes in order to understand what Milton was saying. A rule of thumb when putting yourself in another person’s shoes is take of your own shoes first. You cannot completely put yourself in someone’s shoes without forgetting yourself – you have to look through their point of view as much as possible, not your own: this is empathy. So, Lowell had developed his empathy to such an extent that he had forgotten himself – he basically wrote Lycidas as he read it. He forgot himself. Is it crazy? Perhaps, but only if we lack the empathy to put ourselves in his shoes! It is quite strange to think about; and it lies so far out of conventional thought that it takes quite a lot of guts to venture out with these trains of thoughts. It’s a puzzle. We pick up small bits of it here and there, but most people never finish, or barely even get started on it. We are wont to ever get started because there aren’t many pieces of the puzzle in front of the television set or at a clothes store. The idea is that the pieces of the puzzle are out there, and a lot of people have managed to complete it, or at least part of it, and they tend to speak of the same experience. I found a lot of Lowell in Emily Dickens. I am not authority on what individuals actually finished the puzzle – perhaps they only completed parts of it. Perhaps they feared speaking about their ideas explicitly because of how society looked on thoughts that endangered the way people were living, or rather those in power’s way of living. They feared being punished by society, for hatred and misunderstanding. Many of these individuals were punished, killed, and looked down upon – only later to be lifted as symbols of worship; yet nothing changed. New, contemporary individuals would come along, and still come along, only to say the same thing relative to their society, only to be killed, punished, and looked down upon. There is a sense of humor in Lowell and Nash when they tried to explain the world for other people. But what’s the point in having humor when you are sent to a mental institution, drugged down and treated as a child. If it indeed is pattern recognition then empathy has a great deal to do with it, and each of our bodies are shells for this “cosmic energy” (I already sense people twitching with suspiciousness and awkwardness! I feel it myself!), and that the “stuff” that made Milton into what people see as “Milton” is to be found in his works whom the one with empathy may absorb and integrate into himself. The “stuff”, is thus found in what you create and others can absorb the stuff and feel the same as you once did. Why? Because ideas originate from creation, and ideas are contemporary, cultural and can only exist if there is outside stimuli (finally, we’re back to a more scientific approach). For example, you cannot develop technology if you have no need to. How could you ever get the idea to build a sewage system if you have a river running next to you with fresh sweet water ready to drink? I am trying to find a definite answer, who knows if there even is one. But empathy seems close. The ability to put yourself into other another person’s shoes to such an extent that you lose your own pair alltogether – perhaps that is what happens to individuals who think they are someone else. It does seem likely; and it does fit in with what Lowell felt, though he didn’t say he was Milton, he did say he wrote one of Milton’s works, which perhaps testify of the force that empathy has. If anything, this extreme empathy enables Lowell to improve Milton’s work as if it were his own. Would such a stance on knowledge increase development in general for human culture, if we regarded knowledge as just knowledge and not someone’s property? Creation that does not actually contribute to the betterment of the human species cannot actually be considered to have value. If we have created something that made life better, would it not be beneficial to have the ability to improve it further, thus enhancing whatever even further? It is a dangerous thought – everything being of no one’s property but the property of the human race.
It becomes quite hard to understand or learn anything that cannot be established as “facts” without empathy. So the spirit of one man’s work or ideas can be absorbed only by those of greatest empathy. This hardly has anything to do with mental disability! It may only be a disability to have such great empathy if it is not put to constructive use; why kill empathy with shock treatments or drug rehabilitation just to re-map the structire of the brain in order to make it less prone to empathy – surely, such mistreatments can only be done by those who has no empathy?
If the only requirement for genius is magnificent empathy then there is no secret to it. Pure, but not so simple, empathy. John Nash was very well able to put himself in other people’s situation and game theory is perhaps a testimony of that. Of course, in a lot of cases he may be perceived as having no regard to other people’s feelings – but then, feelings and emotions must be pushed aside in competitive games. Competition is the criminal for the lack of sympathy but only because it is necessary to disregard emotions in order t win. It may also be a way of protecting oneself against others, who naturally shuns ideas that may jeopardize their habitual life style. Their self-confidence may also be a way of protecting themselves from disappearing completely into other people’s shoes.
Anyway, if these geniuses were instead to be put to use in our world rather than locked up, killed, and driven out we would more than likely drive humanity in a far better and more constructive direction than what we have today (How they are used will in turn reflect whether the world becomes a more pleasant place to live in, or a more fearful and frightening world to live in). In other words, had we allowed Lowell to be Milton, as he had become by stepping into Milton’s gigantic shoes, he would most definitely have produced more beautiful creations in the brilliance which was John Milton. Likewise, had we allowed Nash to create his world peace, who is to say he wouldn’t have made it?
“There was a great movement for world peace, he said, and he was its leader. He called himself ‘the prince of peace'”‘ (p.255). Now, that’s only crazy if you think it is. Because he had been refused mathematical recognition he took on the world, which he had already made sense of, mathematically, in hopes of making a name for himself as the “prince of peace”.
Had people cooperated rather than judged him a lunatic he would have gained the recognition and most likely driven the world in a more positive direction. Though, the ideas he had of world government were common for other geniuses as well at the time. This was due to the instability of the world. Their thoughts were basically that some kind of enforcing entity that made sure that states kept the agreements they entered into – basically because states continuously broke their promises if they could gain from doing so. The idea stems from a strategic point of view developed by David Hume [was it David Hume who originated the thought?] who argued that because people fear each other’s behavior (i.e. their own behavior), and the emergence of a chaotic and cold world, they accepted authoratative governmental-like institutions that made sure parties held their promises to one another. In other words, the consensus was that if there was a world government there would be no breaking of treaties and agreements, and so no war. For example, if both prisoners in the Prisoners’ Dilemma were to make an agreement not to confess to the police, and thus get off more easily than if both confessed, they would both confess; if there was, however, a regulatory third party they could make the agreement binding, because it would be enforced by the third party. In other words, Nash, Einstein, and the other geniuses at Princeton shared a similar points of view of a world government to make sure no state broke their promises to each other. This was rational at that time due to the state of technology. The most viable plan to solve the issues of resource scarcity that tore the world apart was a world government. No doubt, had they seen the technology we have today that can totally eliminate scarcity there would be no need for a world government at all. It was basically a strategically and mathematically good solution to the problems of the world (though, had they all worked on technology to remove scarcity rather than the A-bomb they would have succeeded without a world government as well. So because it was a strategic and mathematical consensus that a world government was benefitial to keep world peace might explain why Nash saw the things he say he saw. Because the patterns in society and the thoughts from it was right in front of him – how could he not seen them?
“He told Arthur Mattuck that he believed that there was a conspiracy among military leaders to take over the world” (p. 258). This, of course, isn’t what is crazy – many military men have attempted the feat of conquering the world before Nash and his contemporaries came along; and no wonder he claimed there was when there was a talk about the benefits of such a system (though not under a rule of any of the current super powers, as that would surely be abusive and unstable). What might strike people as odd, however, is “that he was in charge of the take over”. Of course, he wasn’t, but recall Lowell and how he had stepped into the shoes of John Milton. Likewise, John Nash had acquired a pattern recognition for the mathematical functioning of a lot of instances in the world, and perhaps mostly people’s behavior (thus game theory). Because Nash had acquired this pattern recognition, just like Lowell had acquired pattern recognition in words and poetry (and consequently, John Milton), he had put himself in the shoes of those who saw a world government as something necessary and desirable. He would later explain that the thoughts he had about conspiracies came about the same way his mathematical ideas did, and so he took them seriously.
Many people confess of having thoughts that does not belong to them, but even so, who knows whether the thoughts of conspiracies were society’s or whether world domination was actual patterns Nash saw? The important thing here is that he did see them, and that they both come from society. So the question it all basically boils down to is, what is more insane: putting a man in a mental institution to dull his mind with drugs, or simply having thoughts created by society? If John Nash was insane then surely the society which gave him his thoughts is insane. What a disgusting theory Freud created, psychotherapy, used to blame people’s behavior on “latent homosexuality” or “fetus envy” when both of them were created by society. Yet, no one tries to fix society?
Picture a Perfect Picture 