Before we start

• The movie's title is Beautiful Mind. The first time I watched this movie, I wondered, "Is this movie about psychology or something related to mental health?" It was an interesting way to start the movie, and I think the author or director intended for people to think that way. And in a sense, I was half right and half wrong. While the movie does explore the human mind, it also goes beyond that in some way.
• Actually, I've watched this movie multiple times, and each time it feels like something changes. The movie itself remains the same, as it was completed in the early 2000s, but I feel different every time I watch it.
  • The first time I watched Beautiful Mind was in middle or high school. Back then, I couldn’t understand his theorem or why he was mentally ill. Although I was in a film-making community, I was confused about the illusions that Nash saw in his life and couldn’t determine if they were real. Even though I was interested in economics and wanted to become an economics professor, I didn't know who John Nash was.
  • The second time I watched this movie was during my bachelor’s degree in Economics. At that point, I had already heard of "John Nash." I wasn't a particularly strong student in economics, with an average grade around a B, but I enjoyed subjects like Game Theory, Statistics, and Econometrics. Watching the movie again, knowing more about Nash’s life and work, was fascinating, but I still couldn’t fully understand it.
  • After I graduated with degrees in Economics and Philosophy, I made a shift into engineering. Now, I am studying AI in my master’s program, and watching the movie for the third time felt different due to the changes in my life. This time, I could recognize some of the formulas in Nash's work, like the Riemann Zeta Theorem. Even though it was the same movie, each viewing felt fresh and new.

The beautiful what?

• My dream is always static and unchanging: "Understanding this world." One of my lifelong objectives is to understand all of life, which could also be expressed as "seeking truth." My second objective in life is to marry someone I truly love. Aristotle said that love is about finding one's soul partner, someone lost long ago. Even a great philosopher saw this as a lifelong pursuit, and I share this with him.
• John, the main character in a movie, lived a very unstable life. His life’s purpose was conducting research to find evidence of this world using his most powerful tool, Math. Even though his academic achievements were great, other aspects of his life were unstable. Half of the characters in the movie were total illusions from his mind (sorry if I’m spoiling the movie for you if you haven’t seen it yet). Eventually, it’s revealed that all these illusions were due to his mental illness, Schizophrenia. But in the final scene, as he wins the Nobel Prize, he says, "Finally, I found the meaning of life, and that is love." Although his life was a mix of the physical, metaphysical, and even illusions, he could stand strong and ultimately find restoration through love.

Where the Game Theory begins

• As you can see in the movie, the foundations of game theory stem from a very realistic situation. When John was a student hanging out with his friends, they tried to attract the attention of some girls. Then, John instantly considered all possible situations, calculating expected values using conditional probabilities and mathematical reasoning. This part was fascinating to me because, after watching the movie three times, I finally understood this scene. I hadn’t realized before that it was about Game Theory. In this scene, he separates the various scenarios and calculates the potential outcomes for each player in the game—this was the beginning of game theory. Interestingly, the game was about Love.

  There was interesting equation written on someone's car when his wedding ceremony that
  $\alpha\beta-\beta\alpha\rightarrow\text{Love}$

How can we find the "presence" of ourselves

• He suffered from a mental illness called Schizophrenia. Because of it, illusions frequently appeared, making his life difficult. As the movie progresses, he eventually realizes that these visions were merely illusions, not reality. In one scene, his wife runs from him, as he was unstable and deemed too dangerous to be around their toddler. He finally recognizes his illness because his only anchor in life was slipping away. At one point, his wife even asks him, "Will you hurt us?" and he replies, "I am not sure."

• The recognition of his mental illness may seem simple, but I believe it represents a refusal of his entire life as he knew it. As the doctor in the movie says, it’s akin to rejecting his own existence. His objective was to discover the world's truth through his research, but he became obsessed and ultimately a prisoner to his illusions. This reminds us of the importance of mental health. In my opinion, taking care of ourselves begins with self-reflection—understanding what we like, recognizing who surrounds us, and knowing who we love.

• German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte defined existence as understanding something and embracing it as part of oneself. This suggests that the presence of everything starts from within. I really appreciate this concept. But what if we can’t trust ourselves due to mental illness or other obstacles, as in the movie? I haven’t found a solution to this question yet; it may be the work of a lifetime. John did his best to define himself through mathematics, and in some ways, I think he succeeded.

The beautiful mind

• Interestingly, the first time I applied game theory to solve a practical problem was also in the context of Love. There was someone I loved, and I faced a few possible choices. I defined the game, the players, and the expected outcomes, though my calculations were not mathematically rigorous, so the results were somewhat imprecise. However, the game theory approach helped me partially solve the problem. To calculate the expectation matrix, I selected the best-case scenario and followed the output. I have never regretted that choice because it was the best decision I could make.

• Just as John aimed to, one of my dreams is also to seek the truth of the world. Our tools may differ—his was math, while mine are AI and Economics—but we both started this journey with an inner drive from within our minds. I realize I may never reach his level of greatness, but I still want to try to understand the world and uncover the truth. My secondary objective is to find someone who is the missing half of my soul.

  This is why the title of movie is that "The beautiful mind"