Logical Reasoning

PT119 · S3 · Q24 Editorialist: Despite the importance it

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Editorialist: Despite the importance it seems to have in our lives, money does not really exist.

Conclusion

Money does not really exist.

Evidence

All that would be needed to make money disappear would be a universal loss of belief in it.

(You can see this on a small scale the way the stock market rises and falls based on investors gaining / losing confidence, i.e. beliefs, in certain commodities)

Evaluate

Our job is to prove that "money does not really exist", so we would ask ourselves these questions:

- does the evidence tell me anything about money? - did the evidence provide a rule that lets me derive the idea "does not exist"?

The evidence does tell us something about money: all that would be needed to make money disappear would be a universal loss of belief in it.

The evidence does not provide a rule that lets us derive "does not exist", so the correct answer will have to do that.

The final sentence of the argument is pretty useless to the mathematical agenda we have with Sufficient Assumption. Since it neither mentions money, nor "does not exist", nor "universal loss of belief", it's not going to be involved in the language math that allows us to derive the conclusion.

Goal

Since we're trying to prove money does not exist, and all we really have so far is , we want something like this:

if all that would be needed then that to make something disappear → thing does would be a universal loss of not exist belief in it

24.

The conclusion of the editorialist's argument can be properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. Correct

    Anything that exists would continue

    Why this is right

    This provides the contrapositive of what we were looking for (as correct answers on Sufficient Assumption so often do). It says something → would continue to exist even if exists we all stopped believing in it The contrapositive ... would NOT continue to exist → does not if we all stopped believing in it exist This is definitely a rule that lets us derive that something "does not exist". Does the trigger apply to money? Is money something that "would not continue to exist if we all stopped believing in it"? It is. We were told that money "would disappear if there were a universal loss of belief in it".

    Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    53% picked this

  2. Only if one can have

    Bad Premise Match

    This is also a rule that would allow us to derive that something doesn't exist, by contrapositive. It says something → it's possible to have mistaken exists beliefs about that thing The contrapositive ... it is NOT possible to have → does not mistaken beliefs about it exist Does the trigger apply to money? Is money something that "it's impossible to have mistaken beliefs about"? We were never told that "it's impossible to have a wrong belief about money". (if anything, the example of investors reminds us how often they will have mistaken beliefs about money) Since the trigger of this rule doesn't clearly apply to money, we can't apply the rule to money in order to derive the idea that money doesn't exist.

    6% picked this

  3. In order to exist, an

    Bad Premise Match

    This is also a rule that would allow us to derive that something doesn't exist, by contrapositive. It says something → has practical consequences for exists those who believe in it The contrapositive ... it DOES NOT have → does not practical consequences. exist for those who believe in it Does the trigger apply to money? Is money something that "doesn't have practical consequences for those who believe in it"? We were never told that "money has no practical consequences for those who believe in it. (if anything, the example of investors reminds us that money does have practical consequences for those who believe in it) Since the trigger of this rule doesn't clearly apply to money, we can't apply the rule to money in order to derive the idea that money doesn't exist.

    9% picked this

  4. If everyone believes in something,

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This rule would never let us derive that something doesn't exist, because you can only derive the ideas on the RIGHT side of the rule. This says, everyone believes in X → X exists X doesn't exist → someone doesn't believe in X This rule would only allow us to conclude that something DOES exist or to conclude that "at least someone does not believe in _____ ".

    21% picked this

  5. Whatever is true of money

    Unrelated to Goal

    This does not provide any mechanism for proving that something "does not exist", and since the argument didn't provide that mechanism, there's no way this answer, combined with our evidence, would allow us to derive the idea that money "does not exist".

    11% picked this

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