#17 - Human beings can exhibit complex, goal-oriented

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (A)

At first, this may seem like a daunting argument, which can be simplified in the following manner:

• Premise: Complex behavior does NOT imply consciousness.
  
  Conclusion: Intelligence does NOT imply consciousness.

Is there a gap between the premise and the conclusion? Certainly: the author makes a leap from complex, goal oriented behavior to intelligence. One does not necessarily entail the other. The argument therefore needs a Supporter Assumption stating that it does, i.e. that all complex behavior requires intelligence:

• Complex Behavior Intelligence

This is precisely what is stated in answer choice (A). You must prephrase the nature of the correct assumption in order to quickly and efficiently go through the answer choices. For those of you who like formal logic, this argument can also be simplified in the following manner:

• Premise: Complex Behavior Conscious (some complex behavior is not conscious)
  
  Conclusion: Intelligent Conscious (some intelligent behavior is not conscious)

The argument requires the conditional relationship that all complex behavior is intelligent (CB I).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. What if complex, goal-oriented behavior did not require intelligence? The conclusion would make little sense. Therefore, answer choice (A) is a necessary, Supporter assumption.

Answer choice (B): This answer is merely meant to confuse you: it's the conclusion stated backwards. Of course, it does not matter what is implied by the possession of consciousness: the question is what implies it in the first place. This answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): It is perfectly plausible that even if all conscious behavior involves intelligence, some intelligent behavior does not involve consciousness. This answer choice is consistent with the conclusion but not necessary for it.

Answer choice (D): This is in direct contradiction with the conclusion and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (E): The fact that some intelligent behavior is not complex does not mean it is not conscious. The argument does not require this statement to be true.

[netherlands]

Hi there PS,

I had a question about this one. I feel like the same method used here is similar to how we attack some of the justify the conclusion questions.

After several minutes I did choose "A", but it took me some time because the subtle differences in how they described the characters, etc made me doubt whether I could combine them into one chain.

Human Complex Behavior Lack of conscious awareness
Nonhuman animals Lack of consciousness

Is it safe to say, that when we're looking at these type of stimuli that we should just go ahead and use the formula without worrying whether things can all be linked together if they're talking about different characters?

Complex behavior Intelligence Lack of Consciousness/Conscious awareness

That definitely simplifies the process which is great. Hope this question makes sense!

Thank you

[Justin Eleff]

You're right that the way to get this one is similar to the mechanistic approach to answering JtC questions. (Although I am a little worried about your use of arrows here, as the stimulus isn't really built around conditional reasoning.) The argument is this: 1. Humans can do COMPLEX, GOAL-ORIENTED things without CONSCIOUSNESS. 2. On that basis alone, we conclude that non-humans can be INTELLIGENT without CONSCIOUSNESS. Since the first sentence is the only support offered for the conclusion, and since assumption questions require you to pick the answer choice that must have been true all along in order for the stimulus to have contained a valid argument, the task is just to figure out how that first sentence can indeed serve as support for the second. So what we really need is for humans doing the first thing to be evidence that the second thing is possible. There's the bridge between your "characters": we're taking for granted that if humans can do a thing, that thing can be done ... by whomever or whatever (including animals). It's not impossible. But then we also need to bridge the specific stuff the humans are doing (COMPLEX, GOAL-ORIENTED things) to the specific stuff the other "characters" are doing (exhibiting INTELLIGENCE). If the argument is valid, it must be true that COMPLEX, GOAL-ORIENTED behavior requires INTELLIGENCE. Because (using the assumption-negation technique now), if that were not true -- if COMPLEX, GOAL-ORIENTED behavior did not require INTELLIGENCE -- there would be no way to link the two sentences up and use the first one to support the second. An argument that went "Humans can drool without having conscious awareness of what they are doing. Thus, merely establishing that nonhuman animals are intelligent will not establish that they have consciousness" would seem silly on its face, because we know that drooling and intelligence don't really overlap. For the argument here to work, complex, goal-oriented behavior and intelligence *must* overlap in a way that drooling and intelligence do not.

[Nekrowizard]

The way I'm diagramming this necessary assumption question is:

Premise: ~CB-->CA
Conclusion:I-->~CA
Correct answer: CB-->I

I'm clearly making an error, but I'm not sure where. It would make sense if the premise were diagrammed as CB-->~CA, but according to the LRB, "without" indicates a necessary condition, and the statement preceding "without" is negated and becomes the sufficient. Am I super dumb?

[Adam Tyson]

Not dumb at all! It makes perfect sense that you are tackling this question the way you are, recognizing the special conditional reasoning indicator "without" and applying the Unless Equation. I think that the problem may be that in this case the argument really isn't conditional, despite the presence of that word.

For this argument to be a true conditional, with an unless equation, the way you have diagrammed it, we would need to get rid of the "can" aspect of the relationship in the first statement. We would instead want something like "Without conscious awareness, people always exhibit complex behavior." This doesn't make much sense, obviously, but it does diagram out as CB -> CA.

That didn't happen here, though - the premise is only about what can happen, not what must happen.

A better approach here would be to forget about conditional reasoning and instead focus on the missing link between the premises and the conclusion. Consciousness is common to both sides - it's in a premise and in the conclusion - so that can't be what we need. Instead, we want a supporter assumption to link up our rogue elements of "complex behavior" in the premises to "intelligence" in the conclusion. The author must have assumed that one implies the other.

Answer A makes that link for us, and trying the Negation Technique helps to show why it works. What if complex behavior did not require intelligence? When we remove that linkage, the author loses any support he might have had for the claim that intelligence doesn't prove consciousness. With A negated, it might be true that intelligence proves consciousness, because the example of humans engaging in complex behavior without conscious awareness is no longer relevant to that discussion!

I have to admit that I anticipated something completely different here - I got hung up briefly on the difference between "consciousness" and "conscious awareness". I'm conscious, but that isn't the same as saying I am always consciously aware, as I frequently go through life on auto-pilot.

That one was tricky - it seems that even classic conditional indicators aren't always an indication of purely conditional reasoning. In the future, if you cannot put the argument into an "if-then" form without changing the meaning, then a conditional approach might not be the best one.

Hope that helped!

[Nekrowizard]

Thanks Adam, that's a great explanation. I'll try to be less mechanistic about conditional indicators in the future.

[Sherry001]

Hello all;
This question is giving me a heart attack. ! It hust doesnot make sense to me . Doesn't the presence of words like without, until, except indicate a the suffice being negated ? If so .. the how can we draw a conclusion from" humans cannot exhibit "to goal oriented behavior requiring intelligence. Please help out. As I am developing health issue due to this question .

Thanks a lot !

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Sherry,

Thanks for your question. This stimulus is a monster.

In the first sentence, we are told that complex, goal-oriented behavior (CGOB) does not require consciousness - because, apparently, humans can exhibit such behaviors without conscious awareness of what they are doing.

The conclusion of the stimulus claims that establishing that animals have intelligence does not prove that they are conscious. How, then, could we ever make such a claim and hope to prove it? The only piece of evidence available to us states only that CGOB does not require consciousness.

It must be the case, then, that if we are to prove the conclusion, we must assume that CGOB requires intelligence. If that is the case (as in answer choice A), then our original piece of evidence can now be expanded so as to demonstrate the conclusion: if CGOB requires intelligence, but CGOB sometimes occurs without consciousness, it be the case that the conclusion is true and intelligence does not require consciousness.

Does that help? The conditional reasoning in this question is key, and I hope I have clarified it for you somewhat.

[Sherry001]

Can someone please help me with this question . I simply don't get it . Here is my thought process . Where am i going wrong? So I know this is an assumption question so the negated answer should destroy the argument .

P1: hum cannot exhibit complex -> without conscious awareness
Conscious awareness -> can exhibit complex

C: animal intelligence -> does not mean consciousness
Consciousness -> not animal intelligence


This is how I linked up the conditional statements :
1) no complex -> Intel -> no conscious ( from the original statements )
2) cons -> no intelligence-> complex ( from contra positives )

My prephrase was that there is maybe a missing assumption . The author is assuming complex goal is a requirement for conscious awareness . Or intelligence doesn't mean complex goal oriented behaviour . Or maybe complex and intelligence are the same .. But then I felt that's big leap . Super lost !

A) I simply do not get how this is the correct answer. If complex -> intelligence -> does not mean consciousness . I see this as a mistaken negation or simply by negating it I don't see it weakening the conclusion. I felt if I used the negation to attack the conclusion. The author would say " I never said complex goal oriented didn't require intelligence.

B) I felt this would destroy the authors argument if negated .

C) no impact on the authors argument . Author didn't say all anything ..
D) this is the opposite of what we want . Weakens and negated has no impact.

E) no impact on the argument . Author never said all anything about intelligent being any form of complex..

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Sherry,

Thanks for your question. I think you had asked about this question this past Friday - I have copied my response below. Have you had a chance to look at it yet? I am happy to explain further if this doesn't help. Thanks!

This stimulus is a monster.

In the first sentence, we are told that complex, goal-oriented behavior (CGOB) does not require consciousness - because, apparently, humans can exhibit such behaviors without conscious awareness of what they are doing.

The conclusion of the stimulus claims that establishing that animals have intelligence does not prove that they are conscious. How, then, could we ever make such a claim and hope to prove it? The only piece of evidence available to us states only that CGOB does not require consciousness.

It must be the case, then, that if we are to prove the conclusion, we must assume that CGOB requires intelligence. If that is the case (as in answer choice A), then our original piece of evidence can now be expanded so as to demonstrate the conclusion: if CGOB requires intelligence, but CGOB sometimes occurs without consciousness, it be the case that the conclusion is true and intelligence does not require consciousness.

Does that help? The conditional reasoning in this question is key, and I hope I have clarified it for you somewhat.