PT4.S1.Q18 - The question whether intelligent life exists

BomhillzBomhillz Alum Member
edited February 2018 in Logical Reasoning 66 karma

Hi, could someone help me understand Lsat4.s1.question-18 better? I have several questions.

Admin edit: Please review our forum rules. Posting licensed LSAC materials is against our TOS. Sorry, duly noted

I think my problem comes from the fact that I didn't come up with the right 'antecedent claim'. I had thought the claim would be something along the lines of, 'intelligent life exists...' or 'intelligent life doesn't exist...' so when I got to answer choices I went with (C) because it seemed that the whole passage hinged on the ambiguity of the key phrase 'intelligent life.'

Now, knowing the right answer is (D) I'm struggling. It's clear that LSAC are tricky bastards to put (C) as an answer choice. The nuance to the question lies in understanding how the passage challenges a claim that we are supposed to infer. Right now the only way I see (D) working is if the claim is 'The question whether intelligent life exists elsewhere is precise.' Is this right?

Typing this all out makes me realize what seems to be the proper claim is just the negation of the first sentence in the stimulus, but is that what we are supposed to go on?

I have the conclusion of the stimulus in lawgic as:
define life more precise -> !(find and recognize life -> leave definitions open)
conversely
(find and recognize life -> leave definitions open) -> define life less precise

With this all in mind, what part of the stimulus should I identify as arguing the claim is 'counter productive'? and am I right now looking back to say that 'cannot be adequately defined' is too strong and not what the passage is saying. When it's really saying that life cannot be precisely defined?

Admin note: edited title

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  • SamiSami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    edited February 2018 10774 karma

    @Bomhillz said:
    Hi, could someone help me understand Lsat4.s1.question-18 better? I have several questions.

    Admin edit: Please review our forum rules. Posting licensed LSAC materials is against our TOS. Sorry, duly noted

    I think my problem comes from the fact that I didn't come up with the right 'antecedent claim'. I had thought the claim would be something along the lines of, 'intelligent life exists...' or 'intelligent life doesn't exist...' so when I got to answer choices I went with (C) because it seemed that the whole passage hinged on the ambiguity of the key phrase 'intelligent life.'

    Reading your explanation I felt like you were more focused on the "antecedent claim" word of the sentence. But an integral part of the question stem is that this antecedent claim is something the author is objecting against. So we need to not just think about what antecedent claim might be but what this author by his conclusion is objecting against. So we need to look at out conclusion and see what it states and what it could be objecting to.

    The main conclusion is:
    We cannot just decide to define "intelligent life" in some more precise way.

    By looking at the conclusion, is the author writing his conclusion as an objection against "intelligent life exists or doesn't exist"?
    Our author's conclusion is more interested in the definition of intelligent life being precise vs imprecise. So he is not addressing the point about the existence of it.

    So if the author's conclusion is an objection to a claim and he is saying - "we cannot define intelligent life in more precise way"
    The other claim must be "we must define intelligent life in more precise way".

    Luckily for us, the LSAT writers throw us a bone in question 17. So that should have helped what the our author of stimulus maybe objecting against. Answer choice C is a very precise way of writing this conclusion that the author is objecting agains.

    Now, knowing the right answer is (D) I'm struggling. It's clear that LSAC are tricky bastards to put (C) as an answer choice. The nuance to the question lies in understanding how the passage challenges a claim that we are supposed to infer. Right now the only way I see (D) working is if the claim is 'The question whether intelligent life exists elsewhere is precise.' Is this right?

    Typing this all out makes me realize what seems to be the proper claim is just the negation of the first sentence in the stimulus, but is that what we are supposed to go on?

    I have the conclusion of the stimulus in lawgic as:
    define life more precise -> !(find and recognize life -> leave definitions open)
    conversely
    (find and recognize life -> leave definitions open) -> define life less precise

    With this all in mind, what part of the stimulus should I identify as arguing the claim is 'counter productive'? and am I right now looking back to say that 'cannot be adequately defined' is too strong and not what the passage is saying. When it's really saying that life cannot be precisely defined?

    Admin note: edited title

    I wouldn't try to put the conclusion in lawgic. It takes too much work and you don't need to. Since this is a method or reasoning question we just need to get a firm grasp of the conclusion and premise and see if an answer choice even describes how the premise supports the conclusion correctly.

    Conclusion: We cannot just decide to define "intelligent life" in some more precise way
    Support: We will find and recognize intelligent life only if we leave our definition open to new, unimagined possibilities.

    He is objecting against the opposite conclusion: We must define intelligent life in more precise way.

    lets see which one of the answer choice describes correctly how this premise is supported the objection to this statement.

    A. Are the premises showing the claim about defining intelligent life is irrelevant to finding intelligent life. (Nope... they are saying we need the definition to be open. So its definitely relevant).

    B. Are the premises citing examples? (Nope. lets move on)

    C. Is saying we need the definition of intelligent life to be open the same as saying we cannot define intelligent life? (Nope. There is a big difference in saying lets make the definition inclusive and open vs saying its just impossible to define it). In this way, answer choice C is not even correctly describing how the premises support our conclusion.

    D. In other words, if we define intelligent life more precisely do our premises say we will not find intelligent life. This is exactly what the premises do by its contrapositive. Thereby supporting the conclusion that since this precise way of defining is counterproductive we must leave our definition open.
    It describes correctly how the author supports his conclusion.

    let me know if this helped. :)

  • BomhillzBomhillz Alum Member
    66 karma

    @Sami Very clear leading me to the proper conclusion. Thank you!!

  • HopefullyHLSHopefullyHLS Member
    445 karma

    Interesting question, I picked a wrong AC because I also was not sure about what the main conclusion is. I thought that it was the first part of the very first sentence ("The question...imprecise,"), but, taking a closer look, the whole first sentence seems to be part of the premise of the antedecent claim which our argument tries to object. The writer seems to agree with this evidence (because he uses the word "certainly"), but objects against the conclusion that we should try to define intelligent life more precisely.

  • MindfulnessMindfulness Core Member
    69 karma

    Claim in the passage: we cannot just decide define intelligent life in some more precise way
    "antecedent" objection: we can define intelligent life in a more precise way
    The passage, according to the question being asked, is saying that If we took the antecedent objection to be true, it won't be productive/won't work making D correct.

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