A Beautiful Mind
I've seen the movie and now I'm reading the book. The movie wasn't bad, but the book is really excellent. It has marvelous research and takes good, careful time to show us the world where Nash lived, the people he knew, the time in which he lived and finally, in great complicated detail, Nash himself.
Notes I've made so far:
When mathematicians with no social skills eliminated the public good. Boys without women remake the world by pretending it's all brain and no heart. That's what it feels like reading the game theory part of A Beautiful Mind. It's as if they remade the world the way they wished it worked or the way they worked and somehow it made greed and stomping on people to get ahead and using people to make more money for yourself because, by god, those great Princeton mathematicians say that's the way the world works anyway.
But it's clear that the world doesn't work that way, that a great many people act with their hearts ahead of their mind. And, geez, what were we thinking, listening to them--boys living with boys--no real world anywhere near them.
And I can't say I'm not jealous of what they had there in Princeton in the 40s and 50s--time and space and encouragement. My god, I'd kill for that, right now. I'd be so goddamned brilliant if I got a year of that, six months. If I got two years of time and space and encouragement, I'd remake the goddamned world.
And, later, this:
I'm still working my way through Nash's bio which is fascinating, even though it's pissing me off. Apparently, the mathematics of economics pisses me off. Because it's stupid. You can't take people out of equations that have people in them just because it's convenient. You can't say, well, if we make the scale big enough...because there will still be people in it. You can't say because I act like a son of a bitch all the time, other people will act like sons of bitches given half a chance.
But, of course, you understand why they think like that, because the world rewards smart sons of bitches even when they're killing us. Even when we know the world doesn't work that way, we say, oh yeah, must be right because the smart sons of bitches say so.
The only reason--only reason--any smart son of a bitch theory ever worked for even a fraction of a second is because someone--often equally as smart--who actually cares about people--is walking around cleaning up their stupid messes. Sacrificed their life, probably, to clean up the messes of smart sons of bitches who don't care about people.
People count. Not how much you can steal at the expense of others. Not what super slick thing that makes no one's life but your own better and is rilly rilly cool...
People.
Count.
And don't tell me that this guy you're admiring worked oh, so, hard and was oh, so, smart. If he had no conscience and was willing to use those who did, That's not deserving. And it's not truly smart.
More to come....
Comments
Amen.
Posted by: TM(tm) | September 21, 2002 07:41 AM
I don't know why I put this response to this comment, but it seems somehow to fit.
According to A Beautiful Mind most great mathematicians have done their best work before turning thirty. Maybe it's hard to be a mathematican and have a life.
Posted by: debco | September 21, 2002 09:46 PM
The absence of familial and other distractions would make more sense to me than that twentysomething brain cells just work better than thirtysomething ones.
The great-work-before-turning-thirty thing is very interesting to chew on.
My agent says that most writers don't manage to produce a rounded novel until they're at least thirty-five. (The word "rounded" is mine, and it isn't quite right. I wish I could remember the actual word he used.) It's like you have to have had *enough* life to imbue your work with.
Posted by: TM(tm) | October 4, 2002 09:45 AM
Well, part of mathematics is stripping everything down to rational, logical, essential so this would make sense. It's much more difficult to do that once you more fully immersed in all the messiness that is life. When you're in your twenties, even when the world doesn't necessarily seem a simple place, you still sort of believe in your own ability to, by god, make it simple.
I find my characters much more interesting as I get older. They're less perfect and I enjoy them more.
Posted by: debco | October 4, 2002 09:40 PM