Catalin Barboianu

• PhD (Philosophy of Science), MSc (Probability Theory and Statistics), BSc (Pure Mathematics)
• Independent researcher at PhilScience

Dear colleagues,

I am collecting feedback on the idea that the multi- and inter-disciplinary character of the problem gambling research is stronger and larger that thought. The pg research remained even from its early stage in the exclusive custody of the biomedical and social sciences (what M. Griffiths (1991) called “the psychobiology" of problem gambling). A first issue arises when realizing that these sciences are empirical. Does the pg also need theoretical research? Should the potential of the modern neurosciences – for instance – be exploited? A second issue is that, within the current empirical setup, the only results of the research seem to be in taxonomy and etiology. How do treatment and prevention advance with no theoretical disciplines – such as mathematics – fully involved? How it is that we investigate gambling addiction with the same tools and concepts we use for smoking addiction?

These questions relate to my current project posted here:

Dear colleagues,

I am looking for a native English researcher working in the field of philosophy of science/philosophy of mathematics/mathematics to proofread and polish my manuscripts prepared for submission and also (if wanted) other texts within future projects of the small press company that I manage.

I always had difficulties with the journal editors when coming to the issues of language. Manuscripts with positive reviews and close to publication have been pending for many months due to language and I have struggled polishing and re-polishing them with the help of several people. Some of these manuscripts never met the editor’s expectation, although they acknowledged their substance, which is the case of the current job (I have a manuscript that was proofread by a native linguist, reread by a native mathematician, passed both journal’s reviews with respect to content, but the editor still reject the language as “non idiomatic”, “difficult to read”, with “senseless sentences”, etc.).

Thus far I have worked with a native linguist familiar with the field of philosophy and psychology. I thought philosophical texts are clear enough for a native reader to intuit what a non-native author mean in its “weird-sounding” portions, but it seems that I was wrong. Now I am sure that the expertise in the particular field of the text (philosophy of science) is necessary for the proofreader. I feel that the original style, carrying local cultural characteristics, always remain embedded in the final proofread text. I understand that these difficulties are mere the nature of language, but I still cannot accept that a text proofread third times can be rejected.

I am looking for a philosopher of science, of mathematics, or a mathematician to polish my texts in order to make them readable, eliminate the weird non-native style, intuit the logical connection between the parts of the sentence even it is not clearly visible, comply with the standard style of exposition of the literature in that particular field, and, of  course, correct the obvious grammar/orthographic/spelling errors. I intentionally left this text unpolished for you to have an image of what is to be done (I only run the automatic spellchecker on it).

I welcome PhD students or early career academics to answer my call. I cannot pay much (my offer is $3 per 300-word source page or co-authorship if preferred), but I can compensate with volume and other advantages. We also have books in projects, single authored or collections of texts in the field of philosophy of science, needing native proofreading. Editor positions and also co-authorship for the proofreaders will be available once the projects started.

Most of the translations are done from Romanian.

Thank you for your time.

Games of chance have a mathematical nature besides their entertainment features. They are so designed for the house to never loose over the long run and this design is the result of working on the mathematical models that the games represent. If (applied) mathematics did not exist, games of chance would not exist and therefore games of chance are mathematical games by nature.

There is a strong trend of the p-g research from its very beginning to focus on the biological part of the problem (having the individual as subject) in a social context and ignore the mathematical nature of the game. I say “ignore” in the sense of not exploiting at maximum such nature in the relation of the gambler with the game s/he plays. Such trend is explainable due to professional practice and habitual reasons (a psychologist would definitely be more open to collaborate with a psychiatrist, a chemist or a medical doctor instead of with a mathematician), however my concern is on the side of the results on prevention and treatment of gambling addiction, which are still poor:

As far as I know, in any addiction there is an individual and an object the individual is addicted to. Therefore any solution of preventing and treating that addiction should employ the results of the studies on both the individual and the object, but also on their interaction. This is my logic of a non-psychologist. Take the example of smoking addiction: the object has a certain design, structure and content, based on materials of a chemical nature; say it is a chemical object. Smoking-addiction research employed such chemical nature of its object, along with that of the individual. Why then p-g research does not employ the mathematical nature of its object? Introducing electronic cigarettes succeeded in eliminating some harmful effects of the smoking, possibly with potential of curing the addiction in certain circumstances. Such introduction affected the nature of the object as perceived by the smoker. Why do not think it is possible that an enhanced mathematical treatment can do a similar introduction in the way gamblers perceive the game? When I say “enhanced” I refer to a treatment beyond the classical delivery of plain curricular mathematical knowledge to gamblers, which proven ineffective, but focused more on the real relation between mathematics and the gambling reality and the perception of such relation.

So my question is straight: why the mathematical side is ignored and researchers continue to deal exclusively with substances, drugs, brain and social conditions, since researches of other addictions do not ignore the nature of their objects? In anticipating the answers, I assume as right my premise that all object, individual and their entire relation must be explored and employed for finding the adequate path to successful prevention and treatment; under this logic I cannot accept the results of the studies saying that mathematical (didactical) interventions were useless as a reason for moving the focus on the other side (the non-mathematical side). So, my question turns into: why would my logic be wrong?

Thank you for your time.

http://www.philscience.org/pages/pgmathspec.html