Studying Bull

I recently watched the movie Green Book. There’s a scene where Tony Lip is proud of his ability to BS his way through different situations. It reminded me of an article published last month by the Institute of Labor Economics. The three authors are academics: John Jerrim, Phil Parker and Nikki Shure. The title and abstract are shown below.

Yes, people study BS. Per the typical academic article, it provides a history of previous BS studies. There are many ‘over’-statement definitions in the field. Over-confidence. Over-claiming. Over-estimation. Over-placement. Over-precision. You find what you might expect: “participants are more likely to bullshit when they believe they can get away with it, and are less likely to bullshit when they know they will be held accountable for the responses they provide”. There’s even a Bullshit Receptivity scale.

Compared to previous studies, the present one has a much larger sample size (40,000+ respondents from nine Anglophone countries) because it uses data from PISA 2012. That’s how I stumbled on this report, since I follow educational developments and I’ve looked at the latest PISA results with respect to scientific inquiry. PISA is aimed at 15-year-olds and measures skills in mathematics, reading and science. Since PISA 2012 had an additional focus on math, there were extra questionnaire items that allowed researchers to crunch data for the present study.

Classifying students’ propensity for BS was based on a list of 16 items where they rated whether they had ‘never heard of it’ up to ‘know it well, understand the concept’ on a five-point scale. Some items on this list were nonsense. Students also answered Likert-scale questions that provided measures of (1) self-efficacy, (2) self-belief in problem-solving ability, (3) self-reported popularity at school, and (4) self-reported measures of perseverance. The self-efficacy questions were aimed at gauging how comfortable students were with a math-related task, such as ‘calculating how many square metres of tiles you need to cover a floor’ or ‘finding the actual distance between two places on a map with a 1:10,000 scale’ or ‘solving an equation like 2(x+3) = (x+3)(x-3). And of course, there are the actual PISA results in mathematics so we know how well students actually performed.

The results are interesting. Teenagers in the U.S. and Canada are more likely to be BS-ers than in Britain (England, Ireland, N. Ireland, Scotland, Wales) or Australia and New Zealand. Along gender lines, boys tend to be BSers more than girls; effect sizes were quite large in this area for Britain and smaller for North America. Effect sizes were also significant comparing socio-economic status (a standard PISA measure) – teenagers from higher socio-economic status showed a larger preponderance for BS.

Not surprisingly, BSers show higher self-efficacy scores and have higher self-views of their problem-solving abilities relative to how they actually performed on PISA. They also viewed themselves as more likely to persevere when confronted with a difficult task (unclear if they would actually do so) and tend to believe they are more popular at school. The effect sizes are smaller in the latter case compared to the former. When given ‘approach to problem solving’ tasks, they tend to pick conventional ‘safe’ answers rather than try to seem less knowledgeable (again, unclear if this is what they would actually do).

The authors acknowledge limitations of their study. BS in one area (math) may not overlap in a simple way with other areas. The data is a one-time snapshot; BS behavior likely changes over time within an individual. Also, the “social and labor market outcomes” and implications of BSers remains unclear. Does it help? Does it hurt? Don’t know.

Do BSers reflect on their self-efficacy on any related traits? Do they recognize their own BS? Or does repetition inure one to that fact such that you start believing in your own imagined abilities? I don’t know. There’s certainly self-help advice out there in the ‘fake it until you make it’ variety. One thing I try to get across to students is how to avoid self-deception in thinking you know more than you actually do when preparing for exams. As a result, I’ve included more metacognitive exercises and introduced annotated self-grading. Perhaps I am in an area where it’s much more difficult to BS on an exam. You know it, or you don’t. And it shows up clearly.

One useful reminder to myself: Domain knowledge and critical thinking in one area doesn’t necessarily extend to other areas, particularly if they are less proximate. I might know a lot about chemistry, or maybe my particular subfield of chemistry, but I should be wary of the temptation to pontificate in other areas. When you’re in a profession where you’re constantly viewed (by students) as an authoritative source, it’s easy to slip into professing BS, and not realize it.

Alien Invasion, No Wormhole

What if Earth found out that an Alien Invasion was approaching but that the extra-terrestial fleet would only arrive several centuries from now? How might humankind react? How would Earth prepare? Would it precipitate chaos? Would it foster unprecedented international cooperation against a common invading foe? What technologies should be pursued?

This is the premise of The Dark Forest, the second book in Cixin Liu’s epic sci-fi trilogy that began with The Three-Body Problem. There is an unfolding scenario that attempts to provide a possible answer to the Fermi Paradox, hence the title of the book. But most of the story focuses on how Earthlings respond, at least in the first couple of centuries while ‘waiting’ for Doomsday.

There are some parameters to the situation. Some familiar, others less so. The alien technology is far superior to Earth’s at the time of discovery. No surprise there. However, wormhole or teleportation technology is not yet possible, so the main invasion fleet will take time to arrive as they can only travel some reasonable fraction of the speed of light. Earth’s technology can potentially deduce something about the aliens through deep-space astronomical observation, but is limited to the speed of light. To see something several light-years away requires several Earth years to pass. There is a lot of waiting.

The alien force has mastered certain quantum technologies, and have sent exceedingly low-mass ‘probes’, that can travel close to light-speed, which arrive at Earth only in several years. These probes can then communicate information instantaneously between the alien fleet and Earth via quantum entanglement. It allows the aliens to listen in on all Earth communications, and even communicate messages to Earthlings if needed. And yes, there is a human faction on Earth that welcomes the alien invasion and works to smooth its arrival. There are of course interesting wrinkles because aliens think and communicate differently from humans, and have different historical social structures.

The ‘probes’ can also mess up human scientists’ physics experiments at the quantum level thereby limiting the advancement of Earth technologies beyond a certain point. If you can’t repeat results in your scientific experiments, it is hard to discover fundamental theory that may lead to paradigmatic technological breakthroughs. Earth has one hand tied behind its back, so to speak. Choices have to be made as to which technologies are worth pursuing to preserve the human race. However, the alien invasion fleet also has limitations. They are leaving a dying planet and can carry only as much as they are able. Some new developments are possible but must be balanced against their survival over the length of the journey while still having the firepower to eliminate humankind and take over.

Couldn’t there be peace talks? Shouldn’t there be an intergalactic federation set up that mediates between worlds and star systems? Much of popular sci-fi rests on this principle, Star Trek being a prime example. But there’s the Fermi Paradox, and The Dark Forest considers one of its scenarios seriously. The long passage of time between now and Doomsday allow for the exploration of multiple strategies humankind might take, and as a reader you experience the roller-coaster of highs and lows as different options are considered or acted upon. Saying any more than this would be throwing in spoilers, so if any of the above sounds intriguing, you might enjoy The Dark Forest. I’m certainly intrigued enough after reading to proceed to the final book in the trilogy, Death’s End.

Early Riser

Winter is coming.

No, not Westeros, but Wales. And the author is Jasper Fforde, back with another quirky novel. Winters are severe in the ice age climate. What are humans to do? Prepare to hibernate! That’s the setup of Early Riser. It has similar wackiness as the Thursday Next series. The story is immersive with clever twists and turns, combining, recombining, or completely mashing up tropes from sci-fi, literature and dystopia. That’s what you can count on from Jasper Fforde.

Instead of white walkers, there are nightwalkers – zombie-like denizens that might be a byproduct of hibernation gone wrong. There’s certainly something strange going on in the neighborhood out in the boonies at Sector Twelve. The main protagonist, in over her head, is the plucky Charlie Worthing – in the mould of Thursday Next. She is thrown into an investigation involving the world of sleep, trying to solve a strange mystery involving what seem like viral shared lucid dreams. Nothing is as it seems. Shades of Inception abound.

Having recently read The Three-Body Problem, I see analogies between the dehydration storyline to survive a chaotic era on Trisolaris, and the hibernation storyline of surviving the bitter cold of Wales. Even the woolly megafauna have a tough time of it. Most folks start bulking up a couple of months before winter, and the economy abounds in finding the most boring activities to help you doze off to conserve your energy and body fat. You can also dose yourself with the drug Morphenox, product of the pharmaceutical giant HiberTech, but not everyone has equal access to it.

But a small number of folks stay awake through the Winter, to keep things going, to keep civilization alive, and to ward off strange winter denizens. That’s the job of the Winter Consul. But their numbers are low, and it’s not easy to find recruits. At least modern technology exists and you’re not just dressed in black huddling over a fire with your comrades guarding a Westeros wall. But if you’re caught outside in the blizzard of winter, it’s just as harsh. After all, you’re only human.

Fforde immerses the reader immediately in his winter-world. There isn’t a Hagrid or Hermione to help explain things to Harry Potter about the magical world he is thrust into. However, Fforde cleverly includes book excerpts at the beginning of each chapter that explain a little of what’s going on – a narrator breaking into the story line. Sort-of. For example, you don’t want to get up too early when hibernating, per Winter Physiology for the Consul Service. It also explains the book’s title.

‘… Among Early Risers, the wake failure rate hovered around thirty per cent, even amongst those who had been doing it for decades. About a third would simply pull off the Taser, roll over, grunt, and not stir until their contingency was burned away and hunger brought them floundering back to the surface. Early rising wasn’t for the weak-hearted …’

As to one of the problems of hibernation, there’s an explanation of where ZeroSkill protocols come from in the Handbook of Winterology, 6^th edition.

‘… Skill erosion due to hibernational mortality could be disastrous to complex manufacturing, infrastructure and management systems, so almost every job was devised with ZeroSkill protocols in mind. Anyone who achieved an 82% pass or higher in General Skills could run anything from a fast food joint to a Graphite Reactor …’

There’s more to the book than solving a mystery in a familiar, yet unfamiliar, setting. The socioeconomics of winter-Wales is dystopianly fascinating. The pulse-weaponry employed is pressure-based, detectable by barometer-like devices. Saying more about Early Riser would give the game away. It’s an ingenious tale, in a setting that blends the familiar and the alien. I particularly enjoyed how it delves into the mysteries of sleep and dreams, weaving together science and science-fiction. I conclude cryptically by highly recommending Early Riser as a catch of ‘winsomnia’!

The Poison Squad

I’m glad not to be living in the U.S. a hundred years ago, that is, after reading The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum. While there is a slight connection to her earlier book, The Poisoner’s Handbook, Blum’s present investigation focuses on the personage of Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, chief chemist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Wiley’s tireless crusade for food safety eventually led to the formation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1938, but he did not live to see it.

The Poison Squad is named after a series of trials run by Wiley and his team on healthy government workers who volunteered to consume a measurable amount of ‘added ingredients’ as part of daily food intake. Wiley would call these substances adulterants and poisons, while the food and beverage corporations disagreed vehemently with him. Borax and saccharin are among the substances tested by the Poison Squad. But the list of adulterants Wiley was fighting against was long and extensive. For example, coloring agents were used to make food more attractive, but many of them contained toxic metals compounds or benzene derivatives. Preservatives such as formaldehyde also take center stage in the story especially related to the dairy and meat industries.

Reading The Poison Squad was downright scary. Before there was regulation, any huckster trying to make a quick profit would scrape even dirt, shells and chalk into food. But larger corporations and supply chains were just as complicit. Truth in advertising was stretched so far that so-called maple syrup may contain no maple in it, although you’d still see the picture of a maple leaf on the bottle. Wiley championed accuracy in labeling and fought every food lobby imaginable – the whiskey lobby, the corn syrup lobby, the Coca-Cola company, Monsanto, etc. Many of the big chemical companies today such as Pfizer and Dow also had their fingers in the food chemistry process.

Chemistry isn’t the main story though. The two salient takeaways from Blum’s book are: (1) Politics overshadows science, and (2) Writing good legislation is very tricky. Wiley started as chief chemist in 1883, already known for championing the ‘pure food’ cause. But it wasn’t until 1906 that he was able to push through what became known as Wiley’s Food Law. To get to that stage, Wiley needed plenty of public support and advocacy coming from folks who weren’t necessarily scientists. Women’s groups in particular were a bulwark towards his campaign. And even then, the 1906 law was significantly flawed because the food corporations had successfully fought precision in wording thereby leading to compromises that would prove difficult to fight legislative cases against industry.

Having powerful pro-industry gatekeepers such as Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson stymied many of Wiley’s efforts. Some of the vignettes in The Poison Squad about the political maneuvering and deceit would be downright shocking, if it wasn’t for the parallels in today’s White House. While the FDA has made some headlines in its regulation rollbacks, they have been dwarfed by the travails within the EPA. In that sense, Blum’s historical tale isn’t just about how things were done ‘back in the day’. The same machinations of politics and legislation churn on today. The history of enacting consumer protection is littered with nasty large-scale events that provided enough political momentum to move the needle of legislation. Instead of pre-emptive forward-planning, we wait for the status quo to be eroded and each person hopes not to personally pay the price.

Differential versus Integral

I’ve been thinking about how information arises and grows in an origin-of-life context. I recently started reading From Matter to Life, a compilation of essays on Information and Causality, mainly authored by scientists although a couple of contributions are from philosophers. One essay that caught my attention was “Digital and Analogue Information in Organisms” by the systems biologist Denis Noble.

Scientific essays can be dense and difficult to understand, particularly when dealing with complex matter (pun intended). Noble’s essay is refreshingly clear in its presentation, especially since I am not a systems biologist. He begins by clearly outlining the main issue:

Are organisms encoded as purely digital molecular descriptions in their gene sequences? By analyzing the genome alone, could we then solve the forward problem of computing the behaviour of the system from this information? I argue that the first is incorrect and the second is impossible. We therefore need to replace the gene-centric digital view of the relation between genotype and phenotype with an integrative view that also recognises the importance of analogue information in organisms and its contribution to inheritance across generations. Nature and nurture must interact. Either on its own can do nothing.

Evidence is provided by analyzing the relative importance of inherited non-DNA components found in egg and sperm cells. Unlike the digitally-encoded information of DNA, these components provide information in analogue form. The living cell isn’t just a bag of chemicals, but is full of structural organization within – a microcosm packed into a micron. Representing the analogue complexity is no easy feat. Replicating this information is no easy feat either. It’s much easier to copy digital information and store it in compressed form. 

DNA is popularly described as the blueprint of life. The builder reading it can construct everything from the blueprint! Except that you also need the builder. And the tools or equipment. And the raw materials. And scaffolding. And energy sources. The idea that life can be fundamentally reduced to a Dawkins-esque selfish gene that autonomously directs its own replication is a fantasy. Fantastic sounding, but a fantasy nevertheless. Noble calls this the differential view of genetics. It’s a bottom-up gene-centric reductionist view of biology, still prevalently transmitted through biology classes in high school and college, not to mention the popular press.

If you remove DNA from the cell of one organism and inject DNA from a different organism into it, you might end up with a strange hybrid but more often than not the cell simply becomes non-viable. DNA and its analogue counterparts must interact compatibly, and it turns out that you can’t just build the latter solely from the former. Easy examples illustrating the power of alleles that significantly influence phenotype are useful for introducing basic concepts in genetics, but there are very few cases where a single gene wields such influence. In most cases, many genes and epigenetic factors contribute. In humans, there is no single gene for intelligence, or even something very measurable such as height.

It also turns out that evolutionary change can take place through mechanisms other than DNA mutation. Noble advocates an integral view relating genotype and phenotype that encompasses both the digital and the analogue. He favorably quotes Andreas Wagner’s recent book for examples of how evolution can be accelerated through other mechanisms beyond DNA mutation. Genetic digital information should not necessarily be privileged over the vast analogue information – the two work in tandem, and there might even be more information from the analogue contribution.

As I’ve been steeped in answering P-Chem questions with the final exam approaching, I was particularly struck by an analogy Noble makes between the two views and the dreaded Calculus. I must admit that I’ve mainly thought about calculus operationally – what I can do with it – and not as much about what it means. I also never took the standard college calculus class and likely missed chunks of the theory in my scientific education. I close this post with Noble’s analogy and summary. Who would have thought that solving integrals is what life does!

Restricting ourselves to the differential view of genetics is rather like working only at the level of differential equations in mathematics, as though the integral sign had never been invented. This is a good analogy, since the constants of integration, the initial and boundary conditions, restrain the possible solutions possible in a way comparable to that by which the cell and tissue structures restrain whatever molecular interactions are possible… Multilevel interactions are important both in development and in evolutionary change… [and] are analogue in nature because they depend on constraints of lower (e.g., molecular) levels by higher-level processes that are formed as dynamic patterns. These patterns represent continuous variation in expression levels of genes and many other factors.

The Three-Body Problem

Is this post going to be about physics?

No and Yes, I suppose. I don’t read much science-fiction, and the little I have read has come from Western authors writing for an English-speaking world. I’d heard about Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem a while back, but only just got around to reading it – the English translation by Ken Liu published in 2014. Is Eastern science-fiction conveyed in a markedly different way from Western science-fiction? I don’t have enough sci-fi experience, and as someone who has lived extensively in both cultures, perhaps I can’t distinctively tell. Also, the common bonds of Earthlings tend to be emphasized in sci-fi stories when contact with a technologically superior alien race comes into play.

I won’t reveal any of the main storylines since you might want to enjoy the novelty of the novel itself. The Three-Body Problem does refer to its namesake in physics, but it also shows up as an immersive virtual reality computer game. The overarching story has parallels to Carl Sagan’s Contact, but unfolds in a very different way. It begins in the throes of the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China, and then shifts to the present era. One thing I enjoy about the novel is its wide-angle view of history. Perhaps that’s a nod to Eastern sensibilities. Tidbits in the history and philosophy of science are littered throughout the book – bringing together ideas from both East and West.

Astrophysics features prominently, but there’s plenty of other physics in the book, explained with analogies that a non-scientist can grasp. That’s a feature I enjoyed. I was impressed by the care in which the author (and translator) made the physics highly relevant to the story and took the trouble to explain the importance of several complicated concepts. Reading these explanations encouraged me to be a better chemistry teacher! Perhaps I could start by writing a short story based on chemistry! Isn’t that how sci-fi authors get their start? (I referred to an Asimov story in my previous post.)

The Three-Body Problem is the first book in a trilogy. Reading the first intrigued me sufficiently to put the second book on hold at my local library. (Yes, there’s a queue.) I hope the other two books are at least as interesting as this one. These days it seems to be difficult to have a sequel be as good, since some novelty is lost. Thirty years ago, I read Asimov’s Foundation series. Much of it felt beyond me, as if I was grasping at deeper ephemeral concepts and ideas. Liu’s book has mind-bending ideas but they do not feel so foreign, perhaps because I now have a better appreciation of physics, but perhaps also because the novel setting is our present era on Earth.

There’s a certain realism in Liu’s tale. The tale he weaves is not as far-fetched as other ‘first contact’ stories in movies these days which typically include an alien invasion for blockbuster effect. Perhaps the grounding in physics contributes to this realism in The Three-Body Problem. And at least in this first book of the trilogy, the endgame remains unclear. There are no avengers or superheroes to save the day. Just ordinary human beings like you and me. And yes, a bunch of them are physicists. And there’s at least one nanoscientist who works at the interface of physics and chemistry!

Asimov and Knewton

One of two big announcements in educational technology this week was Wiley’s acquiring the assets of Knewton. (The other was the CENGAGE-McGraw Hill merger.) A plethora of news articles have reported on the story. Many of these take the slant that Knewton over-promised and did not deliver on their “mind-reading robo-tutor in the sky”.

What is Knewton? Or what was the promise of Knewton? It’s education buzzword: Adaptive Learning. I mentioned Knewton in one of my early blog posts on technology trends in higher education. Having used a Pearson G-Chem textbook for many years, I was aware of their partnership, which eventually ended last year. 

Knewton may be dead, but the idea of personalized adaptive learning is alive and well. I’ve even coined a term for the approach: pedalogic. And it’s brought to you powered by the latest in A.I. searchbot technology, which I dubbed GooglExpert. Remember back in the day when you searched Google? Well, now Google searches you. For beneficent reasons, it is claimed. How else can learning be personally curated for what you need to learn at just the right level that you’re at right this minute?

The announcement led me to re-reading an old Isaac Asimov short story from 1951. The Fun They Had was originally published in a children’s newspaper according to Wikipedia. You can easily find the text through a Google search. (I particularly like this pdf version.) I highly recommend you read it right now – it will take less than three minutes – before continuing with this blog post.

Finished reading? Maybe you share my amazement of how prescient Asimov was back in 1951.

The year is 2155. Poor Margie suffers through her lessons with the ‘mechanical teacher’ from the comfort of her own home. But the adaptive lessons don’t seem to always be ‘tuned’ correctly. An ed-tech-guy, the Inspector, is called in to make a few tweaks so that the lessons are better adapted for Margie. But then she and her friend Tommy discover a book. A real book. Not an electronic reader. And it tells them about this thing called ‘school’. My favorite part of the story is when Margie is flabbergasted that in the ‘old’ days the teacher was a live-in-the-flesh human being. How could a mere man know as much as the robot-tutor? That seems inconceivable to Margie – and it sounds crazy that kids learned the same thing around the same age.

Margie’s retort: “But my mother says a [mechanical] teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be taught differently.” Sound familiar? Robo-tutor in the sky, beamed into your home, through your cloud-connected device? Education of the future?

Perhaps the future is now. Knewton’s day may be done, but there are others who will vie for leadership in the adaptive-learning arena. The ‘fun’ continues, I suppose. While I agree that today’s schools and classrooms are far from perfect, there is something to be said about the value of kids who are roughly the same age, learning roughly the same thing. At least at the elementary or primary levels, the similarities between how kids learn and what they struggle with are likely more than the differences – at least broadly speaking. That doesn’t mean all lessons need to be identical in content, identical in delivery, or identical in environment. The great part about having a human teacher, in my opinion, is his or her human adaptability that meshes with the adaptability of the human leaner. This, I think, is particularly crucial at the early stages of education.

Machine learning is not the same as human learning. Machines learn, but they learn differently from humans. Could there one day be an intelligent machine that passes the Turing “Teacher” Test (i.e., seems indistinguishable from a human teacher)? Possibly. But I suspect that day will not come soon, or worse, that humankind accepts a lesser-form and call it even. Robots will be good at teaching our children how to be robots. A ruling dictator would love that. Humans, I hope will be teaching our students how to be humans. And I hope the teaching and learning will have some fun involved. I don’t know if a robot could have fun in any meaningful sense. If I make it to the year 2155, I hope Margie won’t be the norm.

Muses of Madness

The brain is a fragile thing. It’s the first thing that jumps out at me reading Eric Kandel’s The Disordered Mind. By examining the literature on brain disorders, Kandel, a neuroscientist and Nobel prize winner, discusses how such fragility sheds light on our minds – and perhaps what it means to be human.

Each book chapter links a disorder to some characteristic of human function. The social nature of humans by examining autism. Human emotions are explored by studying depression and bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia sheds light on how we think and make decisions. Dementia allows us to study how memory works. Connecting mind to motion is studied through Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. Addiction gives us information about pleasure and choice. And of course, there’s the big unanswered question: What is consciousness?

In today’s post, I explore Chapter 6 – Our Innate Creativity: Brain Disorders and Art.

You’ve probably heard a story or two linking creativity with mental illness. Kandel traces these ideas to 19^th century Romantic poets. While there are a number of celebrated instances of famous artists who have exhibited some sort of mental disorder, correlation does not imply causation. Kandel provides a quote from Rudolf Arnheim that summarizes the main findings. “Present psychiatric opinion holds that psychosis does not generate artistic genius but at best liberates powers of the imagination that under normal conditions might remain locked up by the inhibitions of social and educational convention.”

That being said, we do know some things about creativity from a biological view. For one thing, it seems to involve the lifting or removal of inhibitions. The left hemisphere of the brain responds repeatedly when presented with a stimulus of some sort, for example an object to view. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, responds only when the stimulus is novel. Keep showing the same object and the right hemisphere gets ‘bored’. The interesting part: Patients who develop frontotemporal dementia, a disorder “in the left hemisphere [that removes] its inhibitory constraint over the right hemisphere” develop otherwise unexplained creative impulses that previously may not have existed. A different study on jazz pianists found that when improvising, “their brain was damping down their inhibitions normally mediated by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex”.

When I was a kid, hearsay suggested that left-handed kids were more creative than right-handers. (I’m a right-hander.) Left-handed folks typically have a more active right brain hemisphere which, according to Kandel, “is more concerned with putting ideas together, seeing new combinations…” On the other hand, literally, us right-handed folks have more active left hemispheres “concerned with language and logic”. Those are probably sweeping statements referring to some sort of ‘average’ right-hander or left-hander but I have not delved into the details. Apparently, there is evidence that the left hemisphere inhibits the right hemisphere, and thus damaging the left side releases these inhibitions.

Examples provided in this chapter are mainly about artists and painters, although by extension you would expect writers, sculptors and musicians to also be included in this category. The correlation between artists and mental illness is what has been most extensively studied at this point. Kandel traces connections between ‘psychotic art’ to Dadaism and surrealistic art – think Salvador Dali paintings. There is a mention of economics Nobel Prize winner John Nash, made famous through the book and movie A Beautiful Mind. When asked by a fellow mathematician how he could possibly believe he was being recruited by extra-terrestrials, Nash responded: “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.”

In ancient Greece, the source of creativity came from goddesses known as Muses. With brain disorders, could these be Muses of Madness? I’ve occasionally been struck by wild ideas, dream-like in state. I haven’t attempted to enhance these experiences with psychedelic substances. I don’t think of myself as particularly creative – but I feel I have more creative ideas now than I did when I was younger. That seems backwards at first glance, but studies suggest that part of creativity involves making freer associations between things you have learned as they incubate in the unconscious. If you have little knowledge in a particular area, you’re unlikely to exhibit creativity in that domain. I’d like to think that as I have pondered chemistry more deeply, while widening by breadth of knowledge in other areas, that I’m at least capable of increasing in creativity of thought. I also shouldn't forget that creativity can encompass both the technical and entrepreneurial.

One thing I do fear is losing my mind. Reading the afflictions of those with mental disorders is troubling because the brain is a fragile thing. How the brain embodies the mind (or is it the other way around?) is an enigma – one that is unlikely to be solved only by neuroscience. Certainly, mind and brain are closely connected, and the fragility of one manifests in the fragility of the other. That being said, I’m amazed at how robust human minds can be. From abstract thoughts to how sights and smells conjure memories, half-baked and re-baked with each retrieval, some embellished while others fade away. How we teeter on a knife’s edge between sanity and madness.

Below: Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory”