A Most Strange Mind

"I am Professor Starson. That's title and name. Scott is not my name. That was a given name. My only name is Starson, and that's the most important name that there is throughout the entire universe and on Earth. There's like 17 scientific reasons for the name Starson, but I'm not going to get into that with you right now. It's a pretty clear name. It's a name that makes it look like the situation is not just from Earth."
"I'll be happier than anyone soon, and I already was. I say that I am a scientist first, in that I go searching for problems, because the best scientists search for problems, not only solve, but search for problems -- I'm an engineer second, in that I go solving those problems, sometimes through technology. And I am an insatiable romantic third, because I enjoy the fruits and works and successes of my work. There's a hierarchy of priorities."
"I realize I can be intimidating. Sometimes scientists tend to straighten out a layperson by being a little, what might appear to be a little arrogant, or intimidating, on the information they may have an understanding of. But there's nothing really that wrong in doing that, because the other person, unless they are genuinely naive and have just asked a question outside the bounds of their awareness, it's constructive".

Scott Schutzman, aka Professor Starson 

2001 photo, Professor Starson

This man is no longer to be known as Scott Schutzman. He is also not a professor. He has never received academic training as a scientist, but fancies his brain to be that of a scientist, and who can deny him that little conceit? Certainly not a genuine professor at Stanford University who has claimed that Starson's thinking prowess is far ahead of its time. He has such huge respect for the brilliant scientific reasoning that Starson is capable of and boasts of possessing, that he honoured him as co-author on a scientific paper titled Discrete Anti-Gravity.

(Let's hope his ability to express himself scientifically is superior to the somewhat incoherent manner in which he described himself socially in the above quotes from a recent interview.)

Little wonder that Starson knows so much, since he immodestly claims to be 17 billion years of age, as immortal as human beings do not normally come. He is preparing to publish physics research that will change forever human science's understanding of the speed of light, the mass of the Earth, the temperature of the universe. And this amazing man with one name identifying him as a child of the Universe, not of this small globe, who has matured along with the universe for which time is as nothing, is all ours, so to speak. He is a Canadian, and he lives in Toronto.

He speaks of himself as the world's official "top scientist". Unsurprisingly, in the past he has been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, as bipolar, and according to the Ontario Court of Appeal, he poses a "significant threat to the safety of the public" as a result of his "extremely intimidating behaviour", behaviour which he agrees can seem troubling and averse, to some people. How would you like to be approached by someone who looks at you, appraises you and gently informs you that you haven't much longer to live?

Anita Szlgeti, a lawyer who has performed her professional duties as a friend of the court representing Starson, going back 15 years, to his first run-ins with the law when criminal charges relating to death threats uttered against neighbours were brought, explains that the 'threat' that Starson poses is not one of physical dimensions, but has a decided psychological component. "He will inform people when they may expire, when their natural expiration date is to be expected. So, 'You will die on such and such a date'. Some people don't respond well to that type of stuff", she said. On the other hand, he is "a super-intelligent, hyper-articulate gentleman, polite and kind soul, who has  fantastic sense of humour."

Starson strenuously denies he is mentally ill. But his opinion has been overruled by the courts. He was committed by a criminal court to a psychiatric hospital, but refused all treatment until doctors obtained a ruling deeming him to be incapable of consenting to treatment, and could thus be forced to accept it. That was over a decade and half earlier.  Starson asked the Court of Appeal to grant him an absolute discharge; it upheld a decision of the Ontario Review Board imposing weekly meetings with psychiatric staff at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Professor Starson's battle to deny mental incapacitation did win him some concessions. He must consent to treatment, to be allowed to live his life outside an institution, but he also, through his fifteen-year battle with authorities has pioneered a cultural adaptation in how people with mental illness are treated. Patients now have the kind of autonomy they never had before; the doctor's word is not now the last one. On the other hand, what has resulted is a lack of patient beds to serve those newly diagnosed with mental illness.

In the interview Starson gave with a reporter for the National Post, Julian Brean, the professor assured the reporter that the universe will reach "closure" - its maximum size, in 133 billion years. And it is at that time that another dimension will be added. The universe is five-dimensional and I'm five-dimensional. I'm going to get the world better and better more beautiful into the future."