Logical Reasoning

PT130 · S3 · Q15 Sonya: Anyone who lives without

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Sonya: Anyone who lives without constant awareness of the fragility and precariousness of human life has a mind clouded by illusion.

Facts

If you’re not constantly aware of how precious life is, your mind is clouded with illusion.

If you are constantly aware of how precious life is, you have a tainted emotional outlook.

Evaluation

To figure out where an Inference synthesis is going to come from, we look for Overlap. We may need a thesaurus here, but both claims talk about whether or not we’re constantly/perpetually aware/cognizant of how fragile and precarious life is. We learn that if we’re not aware, we’re clouded with illusion. If we are aware, we have a tainted emotional outlook. Since it’s a binary (you are or aren’t aware), there’s no way out.

Goal

Look for something reinforcing the idea that either way you slice it, there’s some bad news: you’re either clouded with illusion or have a tainted emotional outlook.

15.

Sonya's statements, if true, most strongly support which one of the following?

  1. Anyone who places a higher

    Too Strong: "anyone" "will"

    This is pretty tempting, because it’s saying if you’d rather be clouded with illusion than emotionally tainted, you’ll choose the option of being not aware. The problem is that we have no idea if that’s even a choice people get to make. Once you’re aware of life’s fragility, can you just decide to go back to being unaware? Also, if we allowed that you do have a choice to be aware / not aware, then maybe there are other consequences of being aware / not aware that would sway our decision differently from what this answer choice mandates.

    7% picked this

  2. Either no one has a

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: “either no one is X or no one is Y” We have no support for this idea that one of these categories has to be 0% of humans. All humans have to fall into one or the other of these two categories, but the split could be any sort of ratio. It could be that 60% of humans are unaware (clouded with illusion) and 40% of humans are aware (emotionally tainted).

    11% picked this

  3. It is impossible for anyone

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: “impossible” / Out Of Scope: “self-deception” This feels close to our prephrase that “it’s impossible for anyone to not get some bad news”. But is it fair to say that there is self-deception in each case? If the mind is clouded with illusion, is that self-deception? A mind clouded with illusion could be clouded by an external force, not self-deceiving. The easier mismatch though is the second one. Is it fair to say that people with an emotionally tainted outlook are engaged in self-deception? No. The statements actually seem to be saying that these people are completely in touch with reality, and thus they suffer the emotional weight of reality.

    12% picked this

  4. Correct

    Everyone whose emotional outlook on

    Why this is right

    Since everyone has to fall into at least one of these categories, it’s fair to say “If you’re not clouded with illusion, then you must be emotionally tainted” and vice versa. (Note: someone could have both traits, because even if I’m aware and thus emotionally tainted, something else might trigger me to be clouded with illusion)

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

    66% picked this

  5. It is better to be

    Out Of Scope: “better”

    Nothing in these facts is evaluative. We have no way to rank which of these two fates is better.

    3% picked this

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