Ask Lemmy

This isn't really an answer to your question, but psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman came up with 8 assessment questions for asking patients to describe their conditions. The questions are designed to allow for cultural or spiritual explanations outside of the typical Western medical model.

• What do you call your problem? What name does it have?
• What do you think caused your problem?
• Why do you think it started when it did?
• What does your sickness do to you? How does it work?
• How severe is your sickness? How long do you expect it to last?
• What do you fear most about your illness?
• What are the biggest problems that your illness has caused for you?
• What kind of treatment do you think you should receive? What are the most important results you hope to receive from treatment?

Given this definition: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/22327-differential-diagnosis

Your healthcare provider will compile a differential diagnosis, which is a list of conditions that share the same symptoms to help make a final diagnosis. The differential diagnosis will direct your healthcare provider to offer tests to rule out conditions and lead them to find the cause of your symptoms.

Seems one builds a list of other things that could be the answer. Then one rules those things out.

Seems a lot like building a hypothesis (ensuring it is falsifiable), and then proving it wrong.

Edit: In "Clue", I make suggestions in the late game where I expect only one part is falsifiable.

They don't. That's for the expert who has experience to decide.