A beautiful mind

John Nash was a Nobel prize winner mathematician for his contributions to game theory.  Sadly, he struggled with paranoid schizophrenia all his life.  The movie "A Beautiful Mind" was loosely based on his life story.

There is a scene in this movie that I find particularly touching.  John has left his baby daughter in the bathtub alone, water running. He is caught up in one of his delusions and believes than his imaginary friend is keeping an eye on the baby.  John's wife realizes that the baby is alone and runs upstairs to save her from drowning.  At this point John discovers that he cannot tell what is real from what is not.  This is a life changing moment for him and he falls into a state of complete despair.

His wife Alicia has the presence of mind to connect with John and try to help him through this.  John says " I just don't know what's real anymore".  His wife takes his hand and places it on her chest, so he can feel her heart beating.  "This is real" she says.

The fantastic acting skill of Jennifer Connolly and Russel Crowe makes this moment one of my favorite movie scenes ever. Alicia, opens a door to his heart and pulls him out of the delusions of his mind, back into what is real. 

In the real world, Alicia divorced John.  She felt that the safety of her children was compromised by John's erratic behaviour. He spent most of his life in and out of mental institutions, but Alicia was always close by, more in the role of a caretaker than that of a wife. 

For someone that is so heavily thinking oriented, a mental disability was particularly damaging.  As a friend of John's said "You can't really reason yourself out of this one, the problem is in your mind". 

His friend ended up being wrong.  Amazingly enough, over time, John was able to identify his delusions using the scientific method. He would ask students to confirm the reality of his perceptions.  Once he identified a delusion, he stopped interacting with them, so he got better. This is a quote from real life John Nash:

"Thus further time passed. Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort."

I have to agree with John on this. Specially after the Fiscal Cliff drama and the upcoming Sequestration talks,  but I digress....

 In 1994, John received the Nobel prize.  This is the award speech from the movie:

What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career - the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you   [looking at and speaking to Alicia]
You are the only reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.

In 2001, he remarried Alicia and they are still together.  John is now 84 years old.

A beautiful mind is one that discovers what is truly real.