Logical Reasoning

PT140 · S3 · Q20 Taylor: From observing close friends

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Taylor: From observing close friends and relatives, it is clear to me that telepathy is indeed possible between people with close psychic ties.

Conclusion

Telepathy (sending invisible thought messages into someone else's brain) is possible between people with close psychic ties.

Evidence

I observe my close friends and relatives, and there is an amazing frequency with which a good friend or family member knows what someone else is thinking. This can't just be a coincidence!

Evaluate

The author is interpreting a Curious Fact and offering an Explanation, so let's use our trusty template: Curious Fact: How is it that so often a friend or family member knows what another friend or family member is thinking? Author's Story: They are telepathically sending each other thoughts.

Our two-pronged evaluation for these arguments is always: 1. is there some OTHER WAY to explain the curious fact? 2. how plausible is the AUTHOR's WAY of explaining it?

With Flaw questions, they will almost always have a #1 way of describing the problem -- the author's failure to consider other possible explanations.

How else can you explain why close friends or family members know what you're thinking? Do you ever correctly guess what a close friend or family member is thinking? How do you do it? That other person telepathically sends you their realtime thoughts?

Of course not. We're just experts on the behavior and thinking patterns of the people we spend a lot of time with (or have spent a lot of time with).

If my wife sees me heading towards the fridge at 11:30pm, she knows I'm thinking about getting some ice cream. That's not because I telepathically sent her that thought -- it's because she's observed me get ice cream in the 11pm - midnight hour for the last 3000 consecutive nights of our marriage.

If I hear an old Whitney Houston song and know that my brother is thinking about my Mom, it's not because he telepathically sent me his thoughts, it's because we both grew up in the same household and were heavily imprinted by our mom's love of the golden voice of Miss Whit.

Goal

Look for an answer chastising the author for being too confident about one possible causal interpretation when other causal interpretations still exist.

20.

Taylor's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

  1. is based on too small

    Wrong Flaw

    This refers to the famous Sampling Flaw, and we would definitely say that a sample of "close friends and relatives" is too small and not representative. But it's only a sampling flaw if the conclusion tries to extrapolate that what was true of them is true of others. This conclusion is just asserting that something is possible. If I see my close friend Trisha eat a bucket full of crickets while skateboarding, I'm allowed to conclude "It is clear to me that eating a bucket full of crickets is indeed possible while riding on a skateboard." That conclusion doesn't assume that Trisha's cricket-eating capacities are representative, because to prove that something is possible you only have to establish that it's happened (or could happen) at least once.

    23% picked this

  2. Correct

    fails to address a highly

    Why this is right

    This resembles the most common type of Flaw correct answer for a Causal flaw: failure to consider alternate explanations. The obnoxious twist of this one is that they throw out the "highly plausible alternative", which has a lot of specificity to it. This underscores the need to think through our Objections to these arguments ahead of time, and not totally rely on the answers to provoke the right thinking in our head (though, sometimes we definitely need to use them for possible objections when we can't think of one on our own). If we posed to ourselves the question of "how else could we explain knowing what a close friend or family member is thinking?", then we probably all had the intuitive reaction of "maybe you just know them so well that you kind of know how they react to certain things or what they'd say about certain things". LSAT is saying, "Yeah! That one. That's the highly plausible alternative explanation. Instead of positing a completely new ability level (telepathy) that is the stuff of science fiction or the afterlife, try explaining this in more humble ways, with what you already know."

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

    56% picked this

  3. relies crucially on an illegitimate

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the famous Inappropriate Appeal (to Emotion / Opinion / Authority). There's no emotional appeal in here. An emotional appeal is something like, "I know he's not a citizen here. But please don't deport him; his newfound friends will be so sad to lose him."

    3% picked this

  4. presumes, without providing justification, that

    Illegal Opposite

    LSAT was doing this illegal opposite thing way before the Culture War started doing it in response to Black Lives Matter ("Oh, so non-black lives don't matter?"). I can say "blond women are beautiful", and that doesn't mean I believe "brunette women aren't beautiful". I can say "land wars are a waste of human life", and that doesn't mean I believe "naval wars are not a waste of human life". The author said "telepathy is possible between people w/ close psychic ties". That doesn't mean she believes that telepathy is impossible between people without close ties. The author said "you can frequently know what a close friend or family member is thinking". That doesn't mean she believes that "you can never know what a stranger is thinking or feeling".

    4% picked this

  5. appeals to a premise one

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes the famous Circular Reasoning flaw, which is almost always wrong. We accepted the premise (it can't just be a coincidence how frequently you know what a close friend or family member is thinking) even though we don't yet accept the truth of the conclusion (telepathy is possible). So this answer is contradicting our own reaction to this argument.

    14% picked this

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