#13 - Science cannot adequately explain emotional phenomena

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[freddythepup]

Hi, I had difficulty diagramming this out. Can you diagram this and explain more in depth how to go about this question? Thanks.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Freddy,

The conditional relationship here is at the end. Since emotional phenomena can't be explained by physics, chemistry, or neurophysiology, human emotions must not be physical phenomena. We could diagram it as shown below.

NOT explained by PCN NOT physical phenomena

This is a Justify question, so we are looking for an answer choice that establishes that conclusion (that they are not physical phenomena.

Answer choice (A): This is a mistaken reversal---it shows that if something is not a physical phenomena, it's not explained by science.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice also wouldn't establish what we are looking for, since some human emotions are felt by multiple people. Falling in love is a great example. Two people can fall in love with each other. It's not always a solo endeavor.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice tries to link the three sciences described in the stimulus to one another, but doesn't establish that they are required for something to be a physical phenomena.

Answer choice (D): This says NOT physical emotional. But that doesn't establish that something that isn't PCN isn't physical.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer because it is the contrapositive of the relationship the stimulus wants us to draw. It says if physical explained by PCN. That is enough to let us draw the conclusion of the stimulus.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[jayzbrisk]

I'm having trouble with the first sentence of the paragraph. Isn't it a conclusion resulting from the second sentence? meaning, since human emotions are not a physical phenomena (what was shown from the 2nd sentence) Science cant explain them (1st sentence) and therefore we would be assuming that if something isn't a physical phenomena then it cannot be explained by science.....which is answer A???
In other words what is the role of the first sentence in this argument?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Jay,

Our first sentence here is actually a premise. It supports the ultimate conclusion drawn by the stimulus that human emotions must not be physical phenomena.

It can be really hard sometimes to identify the conclusion on this test. They don't make it easy, and it's good that you are thinking about the relationship between the sentences instead of just looking for the end of a stimulus. Sometimes it can be helpful to break down the parts of an argument to see what makes the most sense as the conclusion.

Here we have:

P1: Science cannot adequately explain emotional phenomena
P2: Emotional phenomena cannot be explained by physics/chem/neurophysiology
C: Human emotions must not be physical phenomena.

If we were to take the first sentence as the conclusion it would look like this:

P1: Emotional phenomena cannot be explained by physics/chem/neurophysiology
P2: Human emotions must not be physical phenomena
C: Science cannot adequately explain emotional phenomena

That second example seems not to work. P2 in that example doesn't support the alleged conclusion that science can't explain emotional phenomena. On the other hand, the first formulation has premises that support the conclusion that human emotions must not be physical phenomena. They don't PROVE that conclusion---that's why this is a justify the conclusion question. But they do support it.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[dimi.wassef@yahoo.com]

I am wondering why the answer choice does not address emotion, which seems to be the main element in the stimulus? Or shall I review conditional reasoning?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

I'd review the information on how to solve justify questions mechanistically for this one, Dimi. Remember when we justify the conclusion we are looking for an answer choice that is a complete bridge between the premise(s) and the conclusion. That means that we are looking for something that addresses the new information in the conclusion. Emotion is already addressed by another premise. The new information in the conclusion here is the idea of physical phenomena, and how they are explained.

Hope that helps!