Cancer of the Mind”
The schizophrenia which pulls fast on the reins of Nash’s sanity and produces a nearly thirty-year-long break in his career is metaphorically described as a “cancer of the mind.” The author builds upon this characterization to efficiently convey imagery that describes the working processing of that virulent metastasizing:
“At thirty years of age, Nash suffered the first shattering episode of paranoid schizophrenia, the most catastrophic, protean, and mysterious of mental illnesses. For the next three decades, Nash suffered from severe delusions, hallucinations, disordered thought and feeling, and a broken will. In the grip of this…universally dreaded condition…Nash abandoned mathematics, embraced numerology and religious prophecy, and believed himself to be a `messianic figure of great but secret importance.’”
It’s Not Paranoia…Unless It Is
There is a familiar saying that goes something like “it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.” In the case of John Nash, however, his personal schizophrenia happened to coincide with a schizophrenic era. For Nash, the 1950’s represented a period where some shadowy figures may very well have been out to get him while simultaneously being a period when that potential was not really the root cause of his extremely paranoid behavior:
“The Cold War promised to be the sugar daddy of the MIT mathematics department, but McCarthyism—which blamed the setbacks in that war on sinister conspiracies and domestic subversion—threatened to devour it. While Nash and his graduate friends were shooting each other down and playing games in the mathematics common room, FBI investigators were fanning out around Cambridge, rifling through trash cans, placing individuals under surveillance, and questioning neighbors, colleagues, students, and even children.”
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Perhaps the most famous imagery in the book is not directly related to Nash at all, but his mentor at Princeton, Al Tucker. Nash became forever famous by coming up with what became known as the “Nash equilibrium.” The problem was coming up with a real-world application easily understood and explained. Enter Tucker and the imagery that constitutes a game theory conflict known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma:
“police arrest two suspects and question them in separate rooms. Each one is given the choice of confessing, implicating the other, or keeping silent. The central feature of the game is that no matter what the other suspect does, each (considered alone) would be better off if he confessed. If the other confesses, the suspect in question ought to do the same and thereby avoid an especially harsh penalty for holding out. If the other remains silent, he can get especially lenient treatment for turning state’s witness. Confession is the dominant strategy.”
More than Just a Beautiful Mind
Running parallel to the tragic story of Nash’s descent into the grip of schizophrenia is the romantic story of the courtship and marriage of John and Alicia. Both were smart, both were good-looking, and both were perhaps just the very thing the other needed in a romantic partner. Or, at the very least, the farthest from the very last thing the other needed:
“To see Nash through Alicia’s eyes during their first encounters as student and professor conveys much about the elementary force that was to bind her to him. In MIT’s intellectual hierarchy-where `mathematics was the highest thing’…Nash was the closest thing to royalty. It was his good looks, however, that made Alicia’s heart beat faster. `A genius with a penis. Isn’t that what we all want?’ an actress once quipped, and the quip captures the combination of brains, status, and sex appeal that made Nash so irresistible…`Alicia thought he was gorgeous. She thought he had beautiful legs.’”
