#23 - Perception cannot be a relationship between a

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Flaw. The correct answer choice is (A)

This stimulus provides a rather abstract and sophisticated-looking flawed conditional argument, which can be diagrammed as follows:

• Premise: imperceptible objects we have beliefs about
  
  Conclusion: perceptible objects cannot cause us to have beliefs about

This is a strange and unique flaw: something of a mix between a Mistaken Negation and a leap from "many" to "all(the arrow)," along with some causation. The correct answer choice will likely present a similar, strange, hybrid flaw.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, providing analogously flawed conditional reasoning which can be diagrammed as follows:

• Premise: non-art artifacts we have aesthetic reactions to
  
  Conclusion: art cannot be intended to elicit aesthetic reaction

Answer choice (B): This answer does not mirror the argumentation found in the stimulus, especially given the novel component of others trying to sabotage efforts, so this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): The flaw here is unrelated to that of the stimulus. Here, the author presumes that because preparation cannot solve all problems, it cannot be intended to minimize problems.

Answer choice (D): Here the author incorrectly presumes that because two things cannot be measured, one cannot predominate over the other. The flaw in this incorrect answer choice, however, fails to parallel that found in the stimulus, so this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): The flaw in the reasoning of this choice is found in the invalid presumption that if finite beings cannot fully understand ultimate principles, then they cannot investigate those principles. While this reasoning is clearly invalid, it does not mirror the flawed argumentation found in the stimulus, so this answer choice is incorrect.

[netherlands]

Hi there PS,

Could you go a little more into dept on explaining this one. When I first did it I had to stare at it forever- but I got it correct. But my way of getting to the answer was different from yours and I know that on the real test I need to be faster.

To me it said:

Perception CANNOT equal a relationship that causes the being to have beliefs about the object :: Because sometimes there are things that we have beliefs about that are not perceptible.

So - I tried to look at it in an abstract manner and to me it said " A cannot equal B, because sometimes B does not equal A".

I looked at answer choice "A" and it was the same " Art cannot be something based of aesthetic reaction, because some things based off aesthetic reaction are not art".

But like I said - it took me FOREVER to see that. Can you explain it to me your way, please? Or let me know if this way is ok and if there's just something I should be doing to make it faster.

Thanks so much!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey netherlands,

This question is actually quite similar to the Potatoes and Turnips question you asked in a separate post. In fact, the same exact error in reasoning in present here:

The author questions the veracity of the following conditional relationship (simplified):

Perception Beliefs about some object

How does the author question that proposition? By suggesting that there are many imperceptible material objects about which we have beliefs (Beliefs NOT perception). In other words, the author is showing an instance in which the necessary condition occurs (having beliefs about some object) in the absence of the sufficient condition (said objects are imperceptible). This is a flaw: belief does not require perception, so the counterexample provided does nothing to the original statement.

As with the question about potatoes and turnips, we are looking for an answer choice in which the author erroneously questions the veracity of a conditional statement (A B) by showing an instance whereby the necessary condition B occurs in the absence of the sufficient condition A (i.e. B NOT A).

Answer choice (A) is perfect in this regard:

• Art cannot be an artifact created by someone with the express purpose of causing an aesthetic reaction in its audience. For we often have aesthetic reactions to artifacts that are not art

The author claims that the following conditional relationship is NOT true (simplified):

• Art Intended aesthetic reaction

He does so by showing that we can have aesthetic reactions to artifacts that are not art. So what? Art is not required for us to experience an aesthetic reaction: it is a sufficient, not a necessary condition. Just like the stimulus, the author is erroneously questioning the veracity of a conditional relationship in the form of A B by showing that that the necessary condition can occur (aesthetic reactions) without the sufficient (art).

As you can see, this is a common logical flaw on the test

[netherlands]

Hi there,

Ok I can definitely see how this question is just like the potatoes and turnips question. Again, I'm wondering what's making me miss the conditional relationships - because normally I'm pretty comfortable with conditional reasoning.

I think that I need to do better at realizing that when there is a claim about what something "cannot be" that is basically a positive conditional statement being disputed.

I think I also got a little bogged down into the details of this question - wanting to make sure that exactly everything matched up and meant the same thing. Which is a little bit of a waste on this question because you really only needed a birds eye view understanding of the details to parallel what was happening. But I feel like i never know when it's going to be one of those questions where a super tiny detail is the defining factor - like a parallel in this same section where omitting a detail like "plentiful good food" vs "plentiful food" was a defining factor in the parallel.

But again, thanks for explaining!!!

[lsatlearner]

I can understand neither the stimulus nor the correct answer choices for Prep Test 41, Section 1, Question 23.

Can anyone please help me understand this problems? I am not sure if I'm allowed to post the exact questions here. Let me know!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi lsatlearner,

This is definitely a tricky question; the wording can be pretty confusing. The actual terms aren't super important, since the goal is to understand the flaw in the reasoning. The stimulus is basically this: Perception cannot be a relationship between A and B that causes C, because C still exists for things that are imperceptible.

The flaw here is the assumption that just because one thing (a relationship between A and B) causes C, another thing (a relationship between A and D) can't also cause C.

Answer A has the same flaw: Art cannot be an artifact created by A with the purpose of B, because B happens for things that are not art.

Does making it more abstract help lessen the confusion at all?

[adlindsey]

I don't follow where

perceptible objects

and "all" are being derived from the stimulus?

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there adlindsey! You'll have to look a little deeper, because both of those concepts are implied rather than directly stated.

First, "perceptible objects": The stimulus tells us that there are imperceptible objects about which we have beliefs, and that's the premise that's supposed to support the claim that perception is not about having beliefs. If we are talking about "perception" vs "imperceptible objects", the implication is that there are, at least hypothetically, some objects that are not imperceptible. If they are not imperceptible, then they are perceptible. Hence, our explanation above talking about perceptible objects - those are the implied things that are not imperceptible.

Second, "all": That's implied in every sufficient condition. When I talk about "people who" have a certain characteristic, I mean "ALL people" who have that characteristic. When I write "if you eat raw ghost peppers you will be uncomfortable", I mean that happens ALL the time. ALL instances of eating ghost peppers are sufficient for discomfort. Here, when we talk about "perceptible objects cannot cause us to have beliefs about", we mean that ALL perceptible objects cannot do that. It's implied by the very nature of any conditional claim.

I hope that helps clear it up for you!

[Jon Denning]

I know there isn't a new question posted in this thread, but I had a student ask me earlier today about this question (after reading through the discussions here and still coming away a bit hazy) and I thought perhaps my reply to her might shed further light on this challenging example for future readers. It's copied below:

To start, let’s see if we can identify exactly what the flaw in this argument is, essentially providing us a prephrase (or at least structural representation) of what the correct answer will need to duplicate.

It’s not the friendliest stimulus here, as we have some conditional reasoning wrapped in one of these intentionally abstract constructions that require a little more thought than your average argument. It’s a hard question, in other words, but we’ll get through it.

Let’s first put it in order, with premise then conclusion:

Premise (sentence 2): there are some (that’s how we’ll show “many” here) objects we have beliefs about
that we can’t perceive

Diagrammed: Beliefs NOT Perception

Put another way, this means that perception of a material object (our ability to basically understand something via our senses) and having beliefs about it don’t always have to go together. Just because we can’t perceive it doesn’t mean we don’t have beliefs, and just because we have beliefs about it doesn’t mean we can perceive it. Belief then can be about things we cannot perceive.

But what does that last sentence I just typed tell us about belief in terms of what we can perceive? Again, we know we’re free to have beliefs about the imperceptible...but from that can we connect belief to regular perception? NO! But that’s exactly what the author tries to do!

Conclusion (sentence 1): thus, perception is not based on our having beliefs about an object (I’m simplifying,
but that’s what this is saying)

I don’t know that I’d necessarily try to diagram that out, but maybe just looking at the first half of the diagram, where Perception is given to try to indicate something, would help:

Diagrammed: Perception

I stopped halfway through to get you to think: What’s at the end of that arrow? What does perception give us from a “some” statement about imperceptions? Not a thing. So no matter what the author tries to conclude from this point there’s going to be a problem.

Of course, part of the difficulty is that notions of perception and imperceptions and belief feel somewhat intangible. So let me clone this logical arrangement with more concrete terms and see if that really drives the point home.

Premise: There are many US states that are not Florida.

Diagram: States NOT Florida

Conclusion: Thus Florida must not be a state in the US.

Diagram: Florida

See the problem? Just because we can name some states that aren’t Florida doesn’t mean Florida has to be outside of that states group. Just because we can have beliefs about some things that are imperceptible doesn’t mean that perceptible things have to be outside our beliefs.

So that’s the, we can call it conditional I suppose, error here, and you could classify it in a few different semi-formal ways. For one, you can’t take contrapositives from limited “some” statements and get an all outcome*. Second (equally true) is that just because a presumed necessary condition (belief in this case) can exist without the sufficient at times (without perception here) doesn’t invalidate the sufficient necessary relationship. Necessary conditions are free to come and go as they please in the absence of a sufficient, as well as to be necessary for other things, even the sufficient’s exact opposite.

Phew!

Now, to the answers. I’m not going to run through each, but I will take a sec to show how (A) parallels what we just saw.

Premise: Aesthetic reactions NOT Art

Conclusion: Art

I stopped halfway through the conclusion like I did above, because where does (A) go from Art? To conclude that art isn’t connected to artifacts intended to cause an aesthetic reaction. And we simply can’t know that. Just because we can have aesthetic reactions to non-art doesn’t mean actual art isn’t dependent on aesthetic reactions. Just because we can have beliefs about the imperceptible doesn’t mean actual perception isn’t dependent on beliefs.

Tricky question to parse through linguistically, and the flaw here is less of a common-category type that we often see, but like all things LSAT the logic is there if you know where to look

I hope that helps!


*I used the word “limited” here to imply a non-binary relationship. That is, the only time you can get away with turning some into all is if the “some” bit is truly an “all” statement to begin with. Like, “Some humans are not plants,
Humans NOT Plants. Thus, all plants are not humans, Plants NOT Humans.” That’s a true conclusion, but only because it’s inherently impossible to be a human and a plant simultaneously, meaning “Some humans are not plants” is actually just “All humans are not plants.” The LSAT doesn’t deal much in this type of subject-specific reasoning though, so the big takeaway from this question is the discussion above, not this footnote.

[jessicamorehead]

Kind of confused by this one. I arrived at the correct answer by looking at the argument in more of a structural manner, rather than focusing on the flaw.

The stimulus presents a conclusion "Perception CANNOT" based on the premise with "MANY imperceptible (aka NOT perception)." I scanned the answer choices to see which ones also had an idea (perception) in the conclusion, with the negation of that idea in the premise (imperceptible). This quickly knocked out B, D and E since all of them did not present the idea in its conclusion (liberty, happiness, physics) within the supporting premise. I was then comparing answer choices between A and C. I noticed C's conclusive idea (preparation) was also not clearly negated in the premise (no amount of preparation), whereas A's was clearly negated (from Art to NOT art). A also fit the bill better since it had an absolute conclusion (cannot) based on a weaker premise (often), which the stimulus did as well.

Basically, if I can't clearly identify the flaw, am I safe to go this route? I know the question is about the FLAW so I'm worried this technique is going to bite me in the butt.

I tried to go back and understand the conditional flaw. Here's what I took away:

I simplified the first sentence (the conclusion) into B ~P (CP: P ~B)

(first and foremost, did I diagram this correctly? I applied the not from "cannot" to the necessary, but wasn't sure whether perception of belief was the sufficient vs necessary. I realize that if I keep the "not" on the necessary, then I would get the valid contrapositive, so does it not really matter which I find to be sufficient vs necessary?)

So this author is trying to prove this conclusion with a premise starting with ~P, which satisfies the necessary side of the original conclusion and fails the sufficient side of its contrapositive. Therefore, ~P doesn't prove jack. So is this where I should focus on the flaw?