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> Something in our industrial processes must be screwing with people's serotonin levels because Psychedelics and other serotenergic drugs are becoming the defac

> Something in our industrial processes must be screwing with people's serotonin levels because Psychedelics and other serotenergic drugs are becoming the defacto treatment method for a whole host of ailments. This is a comically bad inference. P1: We have ailments that can be treated with class X of drugs that act on body process Y P2: We increasingly use those drugs Conclusion: Z is messing with body process Y

DiscourseFan 3y ago
I'm slightly offended since I used to teach formal reasoning (and I always make a strong effort to avoid using it when constructing any arguments). You can always arbitrarily translate any parts of any phrase into any atomic sentence, and reframe certain claims as a series of propositions. None of your propositions that you claim I made are actually within the content of my argument. And especially for things that require historical, social, and political context to understands, it is completely useless to employ a system which pretends to be divorced from all those things. How are you supposed to evaluate a claim about the health effects of the industrial revolution using formal logic? How do you even know I was trying to use formal logic in my argument, or that I even cared if it made sense in a very particular logical system which has far more relevance for mathematics and computer programming than rhetoric and persuasion. I never made a single evidential claim nor could I, since this would be an area where empirical research is lacking. I was making an inference, which you made no attempt to directly engage with.
pgt 3y ago
Why is it "comically bad inference" to postulate that something environmental may be messing with our serotonin systems if psychedelic serotonergics cure ailments that we know require messaging via serotonin? (IBS ~ gut, migraine ~ brain, sleeping problems, and mood swings ~ brain)
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  I still don't see the argument. Let's say an argument is a series of premises followed by a conclusion. Maybe you can render it for me. How does it follow from a class of drugs addressing a class of ailments that there's some industrial process messing with some process in the body? Does that follow from every class of drugs that addresses any class of ailments? If we find out that aspirin is even more versatile than we thought and helps with an increasing amount of ailments, how does it follow that there's some related industrial process behind those ailments? Why not just the more parsimonious inference that... aspirin is more useful than we thought?
  - jimmaswell 3y ago
    Everyone feels fine. Then everyone feels bad. They start taking iron supplements and feel better again. Inference: something in the environment messed with their iron supply, be it less iron in the food, something in the water that hinders iron absorbtion, or other.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
>This is a comically bad inference. A rude and unwelcome comment, more appropriate for reddit than HN.
johnfn 3y ago
> This is a comically bad inference. Try to respond to the content of the post.

DiscourseFan 3y ago

I'm slightly offended since I used to teach formal reasoning (and I always make a strong effort to avoid using it when constructing any arguments). You can always arbitrarily translate any parts of any phrase into any atomic sentence, and reframe certain claims as a series of propositions. None of your propositions that you claim I made are actually within the content of my argument. And especially for things that require historical, social, and political context to understands, it is completely useless to employ a system which pretends to be divorced from all those things. How are you supposed to evaluate a claim about the health effects of the industrial revolution using formal logic? How do you even know I was trying to use formal logic in my argument, or that I even cared if it made sense in a very particular logical system which has far more relevance for mathematics and computer programming than rhetoric and persuasion. I never made a single evidential claim nor could I, since this would be an area where empirical research is lacking. I was making an inference, which you made no attempt to directly engage with.

pgt 3y ago

Why is it "comically bad inference" to postulate that something environmental may be messing with our serotonin systems if psychedelic serotonergics cure ailments that we know require messaging via serotonin? (IBS ~ gut, migraine ~ brain, sleeping problems, and mood swings ~ brain)

hombre_fatal 3y ago
I still don't see the argument. Let's say an argument is a series of premises followed by a conclusion. Maybe you can render it for me. How does it follow from a class of drugs addressing a class of ailments that there's some industrial process messing with some process in the body? Does that follow from every class of drugs that addresses any class of ailments? If we find out that aspirin is even more versatile than we thought and helps with an increasing amount of ailments, how does it follow that there's some related industrial process behind those ailments? Why not just the more parsimonious inference that... aspirin is more useful than we thought?
- jimmaswell 3y ago
  Everyone feels fine. Then everyone feels bad. They start taking iron supplements and feel better again. Inference: something in the environment messed with their iron supply, be it less iron in the food, something in the water that hinders iron absorbtion, or other.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

>This is a comically bad inference. A rude and unwelcome comment, more appropriate for reddit than HN.

johnfn 3y ago

> This is a comically bad inference. Try to respond to the content of the post.