modus ponens, denying the antecedent, migraine cause

:laughing: Happens to the best of us, I guess.

It’s funny how even the silly mistakes we make can lead into good discussion and new insights.

So like eating nightshades while popping a few pills of Tylenol? Sure, that could happen. But I think you can still do a thorough scientific investigation and get reliable results at the end of the day (although that might be a hell of long day).

landis seems to be saying that he gets migraines. He suspects that nightshades might be the culprit. There is a very simple test to see if there is a connection: go a few months without nightshades and see if the migraines disappear. If there is a confounding variable that happens to come up during these few months that might be having the effect of cancelling his migraines (ex. he, for some bizarre reason, decided to start a habit of popping T3s every morning at around the same time the experiment started–and this by sheer coincidence, landis not making the connection between that and the onset of the two months of his experiment), then we’ll find out as soon as that confounding variable disappears. Once it does, and his migraines come back, then he’ll know that a nightshade free diet does not cure his migraines and he’ll know to look for another cause. But if the confounding variable doesn’t ever disappear, well, what’s the problem? He may be wrong to conclude that his migraines are caused by the nightshades, but he’s free of migraines. So problem solved anyway.

Holy crap. I posted this question on another philosophy forum and it got all heated instead of actually constructive like this. Thanks a lot contributors. This is sweet. I’m going to give the thread a read through or two then I’ll get back to you all. Thanks again.

Exactly. As gib put it:

Yes, I was going about it wrong. And I wasn’t just testing nightshades and migraines but the utility of Popperism for problems like this, which, as you rightly point out, overcomplicates matters.

True. But I have enough data to satisfy my suspicions.

Bingo! Well put, gib. This is exactly what I did. I’ve done it with dairy and wheat for similar and varying symptoms. I’m reminded of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Section XII, “Of the Probability of Causes,” where he says:

And reflecting on the rest of his most subtle philosophy in light of my consumption woes, it’s helpful to use his scepticism to guide me in being satisfied with approximating a causal analsyis without controlling for all confounds, which is impossible. No?

There’s a significant difference between “if” and “if and only if”, or “iff” as it’s also known. The step of denying the antecedent works only for iff P then Q.

“If I guess the right number in roulette, I win big at the casino” may be true, but you can still win big in other ways at the casino. “Iff I guess the right number in roulette, I win big at the casino” is only true for casinos that restrict their scope to roulette.

However, if eating nightshades (among other things) always give you migraines, it’s fair to say that if you don’t have a migraine, you haven’t eaten nightshades (recently). So modus tollens is good there.

Wanting to find out whether nightshades cause it, in a complex multivariable situation like normal life, is a matter of statistics rather than logic. However, if you’ve ever eaten nightshades and not had a migraine soon after, you know that they don’t all always cause migraines.

This is a false dichotomy as statistics is a form of inductive logic.

deleted (accidental replication)

Land is, how have you been medicating? I have had similar, and addicted to all kinds of drugs, which over a period of time can prove dangerous or even lethal.

Then I discovered natural mess, thank god, they did make a huge difference.

Try Tumeric, fresh juiced with red grapes, with ginger, every day. In addition Tumeric tabs, 750 mg twice a day. Gave me almost total relief in two weeks , and as I am still new to the regimen, it may be still premature to say it a complete remission, (for I have had intolerable pain for the last 25 years), but so far so good. Will let you know with my success with it after I pass the thirty day mark.

This thread is hilarious. The OP, landis, speaks in latin in attempt to obfuscate and complexify the sister of 2+2=4 in a fantastic manner.

Jerkee comes to the rescue, with down to earth english and a list of herbal remedies.

Look, my answer to landis is this.
If you want to learn the truth of tomatoes…
Do the science, learn the scientific method, try learning how to program computer programs. Look less to latin and scholastic esotericism as your answer, and turn more to doing science and programming

Not learning a bunch of latin to answer the equivalent of 2+2=4 type questions.

Could be a variety of things. Could be pesticides. You need a lab. And you need men in your lab. Women too. And you need to make sure your tomatoes are GMO free.

GMO’s have tainted the ability of science to objectively test fruit and vegetables. The sample set has been polluted. It can never recover.

Whhhhhaaaat? I was trying to help a pain sufferer, and others’s advice is well suited, for migraine try not analyze, that may exerbitate the pain, rather, try something natural, earth giving. It takes migraine sufferers to know how devastating that is.

Let me ask this, Ha Ha, have you ever have had migraine? It can be devastating to the point, you can’t move.

I may be making a service to her, as one human being to another. Remedies to pain transcend any philosophy, if they work.

In my firm doctoral opinion, Landis’ original post in itself causes a migraine.

???
… Ummm… :confused:

Well, fasting off everything besides nightshades will most certainly give you a migraine as the body dumps toxins…

As James noted, you need extreme conditions to isolate food variables…

To add to that, those extreme conditions can be indiscernable from what you are trying to figure out!

A catch 22

Turmeric is great advice - one of the best edible anti-inflammatories…

It’s even good at preventing cancer

A study recently came out that inflammation is the highest known precursor to cancer

That’s cute only humean…

“If” implies “only if”…

There’s not really a logical distinction

It’s like saying “the” and “only the”

They both mean the same thing

The: that which is implied

If: that which is hypothetically implied

They almost mean the same thing

They both imply singulars…

It’s redundant to add a singular

I think you read him wrong. He’s pointing out the difference between, “if”, and “if and only if”. It’s a necessity/possibility thing.

If P then Q == if P occurs, Q will occur. But then Q might occur anyway for some other reason.

Iff P then Q == if P occurs, Q will occur. And Q cannot occur without P.

Correct.

If it rains, I’ll have my umbrella.

If and only if it rains, water will fall from the clouds.