If only "only" stops giving me so much trouble...

Heart Shaped Box

Hey guys, I am currently reading thru the Trainer to enhance 7sage CC, while I find the vast majority of the content are extremely consistent to our CC, there are yet a few things in the Trainer I was just like "wut?" In other words, kinda contradicting to what i'v learned so far. Maybe It was just me not understanding it correctly, so I went back to our CC to double check and here is what have:

In our CC the logical indicator "only" is group 2,which introduces necessary condition.

Example in our CC: Only fish swim: S -> F Contro: /F-->/S

Trainer example: I only work on Tuesdays. Sarah only date funny boys.
So I translated them as: T --> W and F --> D, but the answer is: W --> T and D --> F, which it does make sense in sensical ways, but I'm trying understand what i did wrong there in terms of applying the translation rules of "only"? What makes W and D a sufficient condition in this case despite the fact that they are following "only" like how we would translate "Only fish swim".

Another one in Trainer: "All employees must wash their hands" which translates as E --> W. Nothing controversial here, but then it further states that another way of indicating this would be "Employees are required to wash their hands" and "require to" informs of what must the consequence of being an employee, which is W (wash hands). In other words, W is the necessary condition.

Example in our CC: "Practice is required to be a skilled artist" which translates as SA --> P, for P is "required" hence necessary condition. which I totally understand and agree, and this has been the way I was trained, but wouldn't that make "Employees are required to wash their hands" translate as: W ---> E as opposed to the other way around demonstrated in the Trainer? What is going on here? I'm sure it's me so what did I do wrong here?

Last one I promise lol how would you guys translate "All animals other than whales love music"? I translated it as W ---> /M (If one is a whale then one doesn't love music, if one loves music, one is not a whale) and the answer is W/ ---> M.

Thanks so much in advance fellow 7sagers, any clarification would be much appreciated!

Cant Get Right

@"Heart Shaped Box" said:
Trainer example: I only work on Tuesdays. Sarah only date funny boys.
So I translated them as: T --> W and F --> D, but the answer is: W --> T and D --> F

@"Heart Shaped Box" said:
"Employees are required to wash their hands" and "require to" informs of what must the consequence of being an employee, which is W (wash hands). In other words, W is the necessary condition.

Example in our CC: "Practice is required to be a skilled artist" which translates as SA --> P, for P is "required" hence necessary condition. which I totally understand and agree, and this has been the way I was trained, but wouldn't that make "Employees are required to wash their hands" translate as: W ---> E as opposed to the other way around demonstrated in the Trainer? What is going on here? I'm sure it's me so what did I do wrong here?

@"Heart Shaped Box" said:
"All animals other than whales love music"?

These are exactly the types of thing that I mean when I say that LSAT logic tends to be very simple, but the language used to express it tends to be very complex. So for the first two, you've got to ignore the weird syntax and be able to read through the sentence structure. Just because an indicator word precedes a condition doesn't mean it applies to that condition.

So, in the first one, you can translate those into: "I work only on Tuesdays" and "Sarah dates only funny boys." With this, the logic is simplified, and you should be able to see how the indicator works within the context.

For the second one, simply ask yourself, "What is the thing that is required?" The answer to this question is the thing which is the necessary condition. This is frequently the thing that follows the word "required," but that is not always the case. Here, it is the washing of hands and practice.

In the third, "other than" is used as a negation. "Other than whales" creates a binary among the set "all animals." On one side, we have "whales," and on the other we have "not whales." What the sentence actually says is: "All not-whales love music." Once you translate what it's saying into this more familiar structure, it should be much more apparent.

Hope this helps!

Heart Shaped Box

So helpful @"Cant Get Right"!

@"Cant Get Right" said:
"What is the thing that is required?" The answer to this question is the thing which is the necessary condition.

I wish they would have added this in the book, clears things up MUCH better!

So for the last one, I understand the binary cut concept of "All non-whales love music", but if we say all animals "other than" whales love music, what is the logical fallacy of interpreting it as an If, then statement such as: M ---> /M? Does that mean "other than" simply serves as a negation of a set where the emphasis is on the group that is outside the negation, and the property of "unknown" or "not given" is being placed on the negated group as opposed to a negative consequence being triggered from that group ? In other words, if we say "All animals other than whales love music", we simply mean all non-whales love music, and if it's a whale (the negated group), we don't know it does or not? "other than" doesn't really trigger a negative the consequence of whales action such as W ---> /M?

Cant Get Right

@"Heart Shaped Box" said:
what is the logical fallacy of interpreting it as an If, then statement such as: M ---> /M?

I'm guessing this is a typo? Can you clarify?

Heart Shaped Box

lol my bad. Like why is it wrong to to say if W ---> then /M, since this is not the correct contrapositive form of the answer /W ---> M. Is it bc "other than" blah blah what i said above lol

Cant Get Right

Ok, that's what I figured, haha, just wanted to make sure!

So for the last one, the fallacy is a mistaken reversal.

Since our sufficient condition is /W, then we fail the sufficient condition when we are talking about our W set. When we fail the sufficient, then the necessary condition is free to follow or not. It is no longer necessary. It's just like in LG how when we fail the sufficient condition, the rule falls away. It's the exact same thing here.

Heart Shaped Box

I agree with the reversal sufficiency/necessity confusion, but I guess I didn't word my question clear. I guess I was asking why "other than" in this case wouldn't trigger W to be the sufficient condition, like why is wrong to say "if it's a whale, then it doesn't love music," if the original statement is "All animals other than whales love music?" I understand "other than" serves as a negation to distinguish Whales and non-whales, so if we use /W (non-whales) to be the sufficiency, then W would the incorrect form of /W (reversal confusion) but what prevents W to be the sufficient condition in this case, is it because when "other than" serves as negation in a given set, the negated group (Whales in this case) doesn't really trigger anything? Like if we say, All animals other than whales love music, and you give me a whale, then we can't conclude (property of unknown) anything?

I appreciate your help man and I'm sure your right. I know it kinda sounds confusing and am over complicating things, it's just really hard for me to express exactly what I mean with typing in this case, but I understand your reasoning completely. I'm just trying to break down exactly piece by piece why my wrong ones are wrong lol

Cant Get Right

@"Heart Shaped Box" said:
is it because when "other than" serves as negation in a given set, the negated group (Whales in this case) doesn't really trigger anything? Like if we say, All animals other than whales love music, and you give me a whale, then we can't conclude (property of unknown) anything?

You got it! This is exactly it.

@"Heart Shaped Box" said:
I'm just trying to break down exactly piece by piece why my wrong ones are wrong lol

Good! That's the way you want to approach it! Don't set anything aside until you've mastered it. The more you struggle, the more important it becomes for you to understand.

Heart Shaped Box

I appreciate it man, thanks for confirming! This has truly helped!