Professor Glenn Wilson, Gresham College, London

1

GENIUS OR MADNESS?

• Professor Glenn Wilson, Gresham College, London

2
WISDOM OF THE POETS

• Great wits are sure to madness near allied
• And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
• (John Dryden, 1681)
• There is no great genius without a tincture of
  madness.
• (Seneca, 1st Century A.D.)

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ISAAC NEWTON

• Newton, one of the greatest scientists ever,
  introduced the concept of gravity and made major
  contributions to mechanics, optics mathematics.
• Was intensely suspicious and distrustful. In
  later life dabbled in alchemy and sought hidden
  messages in the Bible. Suffered mercury
  poisoning? (Keynes, 2008)

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NIKOLA TESLA

• Rivalled Edison as an inventor, obtaining around
  300 patents on radio and electrical technology.
  Pioneer of AC current and hydro-electric power.
• Spoke 8 languages and had a photographic memory.
  
• Claimed to be in communication with other
  planets and to have invented death rays.
  Various bizarre OCD symptoms. Celibate
  reclusive. Slept for two hours/night.

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A BEAUTIFUL MIND

• John Nash - Nobel prize winning mathematician.
  Developed game theory as applied to social
  sciences.
• Experienced paranoid delusions. Hospitalised
  involuntarily had to feign sanity to get
  discharged.
• I wouldnt have had such good scientific ideas
  if I had thought more normally.

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GALILEO

• Whether one is recognised as a genius or seen as
  crazy depends partly on cultural context.
• To the Counter-Reformation Church, Galileo was
  dangerously heretical because his observations
  supported a heliocentric theory of the planets.
• In other times and places Picasso and Einstein
  might have been committed to an insane asylum
  rather than revered for their originality.

Galileo faced a Vatican Inquisition in 1633. His
ideas were declared foolish and absurd and he
was sentenced to house arrest for life. The ban
on his writings remained until 1835. He was
vindicated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 and an
apology was issued in 2000.
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BEHAVIOUR GENETICS

• Evidence for a genius-madness link comes from
  fact that close relatives of creative people have
  higher rates of schizophrenia, and vice versa
  (psychotics have more creative relatives).
• (Simonton, 2005)
• I have been surprised at finding how often
  insanity or idiocy has appeared among the near
  relatives of exceptionally able people (Francis
  Galton, Hereditary Genius, 1892)

Einsteins schizophrenic son (Eduard)
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TROUBLED AUTHORS

• Mental disorder is more common in close relatives
  of creative people than in creatives themselves.
  Actual illness usually impedes creative success.
• Exception is writers, who themselves have high
  rates of many disorders, including schizophrenia,
  mood disorders, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse
  and suicide.
• (Kyaga et al, 2012).

Virginia Woolf suffered severe depressive
episodes, finally drowning herself in the River
Ouse.
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CRADLES OF EMINENCE

• Childhood trauma and orphan status are more
  common in high achievers (Goetzel et al, 2004).
  Such experiences may be motivating and
  inspirational, while also inducing mental
  illness.
• But wealth is more frequent than poverty in
  families of famous and ill-treatment may be
  genetically linked.

Charles Dickens father was in debtors prison so
he left school early to work in a factory (c.f.,
themes of child maltreatment and social reform).
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BIZARRE GRANDIOSE

• Certain traits and thought processes are shared
  by genius and madman. Ideas are novel,
  unconventional and grandiose. Usually
  workaholic, ambitious, narcissistic
  self-promoting.
• Various genes and neurotransmitters implicated
  including testosterone, a growth factor called
  neuregulin (NRG1), and genes modulating dopamine
  in the brain (DARPP-32).

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PERSONALITY CREATIVITY

• Genius goes with high IQ Psychoticism (P)
  includes novelty-seeking, risk-taking,
  impulsiveness, non-conformity, self-confidence
  work-addiction. Associated with high dopamine
  testosterone (Eysenck, 1995).
• Possessing some indicators of schizotypy
  promotes creative achievement but not full-blown
  schizophrenia.
• (Kuszewki, 2009)

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DOPAMINE CIRCUITS

• Commence in limbic mid-brain and project to
  motivational areas of the frontal cortex.
• Systems concerned with reward, approach and
  positive mood.
• Implicated in novelty-seeking, impulsiveness,
  psychoticism, addiction.

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LOOSE ASSOCIATIONS

• Schizophrenic thinking is characterised by loose
  associations thinking outside the box.
• e.g., Unusual responses on Word Association
  test
• Dalis surrealistic designs.
• Flashcards are used in brain-storming sessions
  to force fresh ideas.
• Great artists/scientists usually seen as
  rebels in their field.

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OVERINCLUSIVE THINKING

• Schizophrenics and manic persons often set
  boundaries of relevance too broadly.
• c.f., great thinkers who come up with grand
  unifications.
• To most people there is no connection between an
  apple falling off a tree and the motion of
  planets. Newton (1665) was able to connect them
  with concept of gravity.

Newtons apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor,
Lincs
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APOPHENIA

• Human tendency to see meaningful patterns where
  they do not exist. Underlies superstition, belief
  in paranormal, seeing ghosts, UFOs, miracles,
  conspiracies, hearing voices etc.
• Apophenia is exaggerated in schizotypal persons
  and increased by dopamine. May contribute to both
  creativity and madness.

Face on Mars (captured by Viking 1, 1976).
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BIPOLAR MOOD DISORDER

• Off the wall comedian Paul Merton among many
  creative performers treated for mood disorder.
• Merton also displayed certain psychotic symptoms
  such as hearing voices and believing he was
  targeted by Freemasons.
• His freestyle comedy style seems to benefit from
  loose associations (c.f., Spike Milligan).

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PSYCHOSIS AND MOOD DISORDER

• Genetic analysis shows overlap between
  schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder. Some
  genes unique to each condition others (including
  NRG1) are common to both.
• (Schematic diagram from Owen et al, 2007)

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THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM

• Aspergers Syndrome (deficient social
  communication) has been posthumously assigned to
  many geniuses, including Michelangelo, Mozart,
  Newton, Wittgenstein, Marie Curie and Einstein.
• Another way of saying they were slightly odd or
  schizotypal?

Michelangelo was melancholic, abstemious,
work-obsessed, solitary and lacking social skills.
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THE SAVANT PHENOMENON

• Savants are autistic individuals with exceptional
  skills, usually in musical, mathematical or
  memory skills.
• Usually too narrow and low in general IQ to be
  great achievers.
• Prenatal testosterone may be involved.

The film Rain Man concerns an autistic man whose
memory for cards was exploited by his brother in
Las Vegas casinos. Character based on Kim Peek, a
savant who probably had a chromosome disorder
(Opitz-Kaveggia Syndrome).
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ARTISTIC MADNESS?

• Louis Wain was a trained artist, hospitalised for
  schizophrenia in 1924. His trademark cats began
  as funny and whimsical (to entertain ailing
  wife) became progressively abstract and
  kaleidoscopic (even scary).
• May actually have suffered from Aspergers or
  Toxoplasmosis (a parasite that can be caught from
  cats).

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CREATIVES APPEAR SEMI-PSYCHOTIC

• MMPI profiles of creative artists are on a
  continuum towards psychosis (similar profiles,
  but less extreme).
• (Simonton, 2005)
• Survival of genes for madness down to
  association with creativity? Helps to be slightly
  mad.

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CREATIVITY AS COURTSHIP

• Art functions as a mating display (c.f. the
  bower bird).
• Successful male artists have more sexual
  partners than unsuccessful ones.
• (No such connection for female artists).
• Male output for art, books, scientific
  discoveries is 10x M/F.
• (Clegg et al, 2011)

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INSIGHT AND CONTROL

• Lucia Joyce (daughter of novelist James Joyce)
  showed early talent as a modern dancer but became
  aggressive and self-destructive and was
  eventually committed to an asylum.
• Joyce doubted she could be schizophrenic because
  her thought patterns were similar to his own.
  Jung (who was treating her) said father and
  daughter were like two people who had arrived at
  the bottom of the river James had dived there,
  whereas Lucia had fallen in.

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CONTACT WITH REALITY

• Prime marker of sanity.
• Salvador Dali was a talented painter whose
  surrealism seemed inspired by madness.
• However, he retained self-insight
• There is one difference between a madman and me.
  The madman thinks he is sane, whereas I know that
  I am mad.

Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937