If you want to know more about Stephen Takowsky, do a web search on “MrGameTheory”. He’s a well known video gamer, playing the “Civilization” franchise.

Thing is, it’s really pretty difficult to decide whether to take this guy seriously or not. He rather reminds me of a “reporter” from the Daily Show who says ridiculous things in order to gain a comical response.

Even if that’s not the case, his chronic narcissism would prevent him from hearing, or understanding anything negative about himself, or his “theory”.

All in all, I have to commend you for getting through his “book”.. I couldn’t make it past page 3 without choking on the idiocy.

Kindly, I perceive the following issues:

1. The “model” is not falsifiable(does not distinguish itself from a 50/50 stochasticity): Even if every human’s life on this planet was to be followed, interrogated for every say nanosecond for the “happy” or “sad” state provided if such states can even be clearly demarcated at molecular or even more macro to meet a robust standard, and even if the so called desired ratio of 1 is attained, the model contains no scientific substance to ascertain and provide insight on such a ratio of 1. Instead the “model” appeals to “meta” physics or supernatural ones. The scientific enterprise rests on the Karl Popperian/Baconian way of an experimental strategy to falsify a model/theory. The model does not distinguish itself from a 50/50 stochastic outcome. I recall Charles Darwin gathering tremendous amount of data, and then finally presenting his theory to explain it all. Einstein, in the same manner observed an incronguity in the then existing models, if I recall correctly. Paradigm shifting ideas are usually tethered and seeped into experimentation, but always validated from experimentation.

2. The PDF math article noted above is not empirical(not based on experiment). Its a very simple toy model(linear based) that generates numbers and interesting shapes that receives an input, called “happy”. It could very well have been named anything else. Even a simple 3-body problem which actually is based on a hamiltonian with an actual potential can have extremely complicated dynamics, let alone, a complex organism, deserves a lifetime of scrutiny, as evidenced by many who spend their time on it.

3. The desiderata of requiring a perfect ratio of 1, from a pure point of view, is challenged by the uncertainty principle, quantum. Extremely highly sensitive measurements do exist for say single systems, but for a many many body problem such as the human brain, ensemble measurements contain measurement errors. In such a fashion, one would need to then jerry-rig the definition of happy and sad state, which is undesirable.

4. Observing the ratio of 1 does not prove nor disprove the model, because at the end, chance may give rise to a ratio of 1 as well, since the model, does not distinguish why or why not either scenario should or should not be favored. In other words, the model does not provide a clear guidance and scientific insight, on why one or the other outcome should or should not occur, appealing to the current canonical wisdom of science.

5. A gedanken counter example to the “model”: Person A willfully makes person B miserable(sad) for all the lifetime of person B, when ascertained experimentally! Then, B dies! Therefore the ratio not being 1. Gradations maybe be realized as well.

6. One person’s happiness may be another’s sadness or semisadness or vagueness with a variable coeffcient. Calibrating each and every is tricky.

Also, Can the ratio be 1 at the end? Maybe, but is it a law, well, it would be, but till then I would need to see a scientific model for it and how such a scientific model would distinguish itself uniquely rom say 50/50 stochastic one or any other ones.

An example may elucidate. I can say, half the time, people on this planet, are hungry. Well, it may well be true, just because chance and statistics would render it so. Should I then declare that there is such a law, “the hungry 1/2 people law of balance”. Well, I can, but it wouldn’t offer much elucidation nor insight. I can instead say, 50/50 it has occurred. On the other hand, I can dig deeper and ask why that is happening, such as socio-economic and so on factors. Its always very important, to discuss a topic with a language that befits the task at hand, otherwise, the model is ill posed to interact with that issue and at the end, would grotesquely struggle to be falsafiable.

I think, its rather important, to not be sensational, but rather when one wishes to investigate, just to do so, for the sake of learning.

Lastly, yea’s and nay’s are irrelevant. The scientific method has a strict guideline on what is and is not falsafiable and scientifically plausable. Polls are irrelevant when a model is not falsafiable and when so overreached that can barely be interacted with.

Perhaps, any science enthusiasts out there, can immerse himself/herself to study a science paper in depth, and say spend 6 months on understanding what goes into model making, experimentation, validation and the extreme care that goes into the scientific process, to render appreciation and further sharpness. Science is a very beautiful enterprise and especially when one asks the relevant questions, which I confess for myself, is not very easy. And that’s why having the background knowledge is extremely important before model making, in my humble opinion.

With much best wishes and Regards….
ps. Its always very important to ask, what am I learning from such and such? How powerfully does a model/theory elucidate an exisiting set of data!

This post is dated March 6, 2010. Since then (fairly recently, it seems), the site has be changed drastically. Takowsky almost certainly read my post and has made significant edits. I have screen shots of much of the book as it was in January and would be happy to share those with you. I can assure you that I did not make accusations without evidence.

The “book” has been edited from 400 pages to 181 and the typeface and spacing along with additions lead me to believe that very little of the original piece remains. I could not have misrepresented his intentions because I did not discuss them. However, his intentions are not relevant.

The most basic problem with his “theory” is that it requires the existence of a supernatural force, whether you call that force “god” or not. Neither the question of whether god (or some other supernatural force) exists, nor the question of whether god exists and can see the future, is scientific in the least.

In addition, slapping labels one created onto things in a model is not defining constructs. There remain a number of serious problems with calling this a “scientific theory” and selling it as anything other than fantasy. There are realms of speculative science in which models may be constructed which are not grounded in current knowledge. However, this would not fit there because his it defies what we currently understand to be true.

I cannot agree with your assessment of the book’s entertainment value, structure, or the quality of the writing, but these are of course opinions, not facts. We can easily disagree on those points without disagreeing about the facts.

I maintain my opinion that the best way to describe this “theory” must include the words “ridiculous” and “utter nonsense”.

My current charge for providing serious scientific analysis of *any* material which is sent to me unsolicited is £1000, for which I guarantee to spend 2 hours evaluating the material and writing a report.

Oh, I am soooo using this approach – I just received an email this morning that I am quite certain is from Takowsky, but is signed “Joseph” and refers me to another ridiculous “book”. I will have to cover it in a new post.

I think I will add that every solicitation for a review of content that I have received has come with an offer of a cash honorarium, which is true, as is traditional in academia.

Dear Mr. Takowsky,

My current charge for providing serious scientific analysis of *any* material which is sent to me unsolicited is £1000, for which I guarantee to spend 2 hours evaluating the material and writing a report.

Half of this fee is payable in advance.

Should you wish to proceed, I will send you the appropriate details for how to make payment, and I will then begin to evaluate the work in question.

Kind Regards

Terry Rudolph

to which he replied

Terry,

Thank you for the response. If you read the full book, scientifically invalidate or validate the theory of the book, and your peers conclude that you are correct, we will give you a free $4,500 full page in our magazine to publish one of your articles, as long as it is in good taste and not inappropriate. The book also addresses the concerns of every past reviewer.
We are mostly interested in an analysis derived after reading the entire book, especially the experiments and the theoretical model presented at the end of the book. If you do not have time to review the entire book then please spend two minutes reading the theoretical model section at the back of the book so you can see the science behind the books claims. I have also attached the full book to this email so you can skip ahead to the theoretical model section if you need to.

At that point I became vaguely curious who this numbskull is – and google led me to you

It also does not have anything at all to with “emotional balance” across the lifespan. It’s about homeostasis in individual emotional responses. And it can’t support anything because it’s not evidence. He proposes some vague tests of his “model”, but that’s it. The author ends with:

I have benefited from discussions with Keith Warren who intends to write a more serious sequel to this paper and to numerous other colleagues and friends, including some who consider these ideas ridiculous.

Um, yeah, they’re pretty ridiculous.

Published in the Journal Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pubs/paper281.pdf

I have now been contacted by 4 people in the past two days who received his email recently. Frankly, I am a little surprised that he is not embarrassed enough to remove the website. Maybe he thinks he do what L. Ron Hubbard did?