#7 - Although instinct enables organisms to make complex

[Morgan O'Donnell]

Hi Ellen!

It looks like you actually posted this question in October If you want to reference the chain of responses, I think it will help you understand the question once again!

Let me know if this helps!

Sincerely,

Morgan O'Donnell
PowerScore Test Preparation

[ellenb]

Thanks, I have looked at that link, however, my questions this time around are a bit different than I was asking back then, and to be honest it made me more confused to look back, since I have a bit of a more advanced understanding of the MBT questions, it might be the same topic but asked from a different angle, and hence they require a different explanation.

Regards,

Ellen

[BethRibet]

Hi Ellen,

Thanks for writing.

Instinctual and instinctual are the same word -- I'm not sure what you're asking about contrapositives? Not instinctual (or non-instinctual) would be the logical opposite.

Answer choice C can be ruled out because it essentially involves a mistaken reversal. Flexible behavior, in the stimulus, is a sufficient condition, but in answer choice C it is treated as a necessary condition.

Answer choice D is similar, a brain must be larger than an insect's in order to meet the necessary condition, but that does mean that if it is large, that we can assume the sufficient condition will also be met.

Answer choice A gives us a frequency -- "usually" -- which we have no support for. We know that for flexible behavior to be possible you would need a large number of neurons, but that doesn't mean we know specifically how much behavior would be flexible vs. instinctual if you do have a large number of neurons.

Answer choice E isn't supported by the stimulus -- what we know is that insect sized brains are only capable of instinctual behavior, not that they are the only kind that are purely instinctual.

All of the stimulus is part of the context of the argument, but if you were able to get to the right answer choice, that's what matters!

Hope this helps.

Beth


Thanks,

Beth

[mpoulson]

Hello,

How is that we know there are only two forms of thinking (instinctual vs. not instinctual). Furthermore, how is it gathered from the paragraph that Insect Behavior is exclusively instinctually and not something else not mentioned in the paragraph? "Exclusively" seems to be a very strong word. Thank you.

[Clay Cooper]

Hi mpoulson,

Thanks for your question.

Within the framework of this stimulus, a behavior may be noninstinctual (or 'flexible'). In order for that to be the case, we are told, the organism exhibiting the behavior must possess a large number of neurons.

~Instinctive --> Many Neurons

We are also told that insects do not yet have a number of neurons sufficient to achieve noninstinctual behavior:

Insect --> ~Many Neurons

Taking the contrapositive of the first statement above, and linking it with the second, we arrive at the following:

Insect --> ~Many Neurons --> Instinctive

or, all insects lack a sufficient number of neurons to achieve flexible (noninstinctual) behavior, and therefore all of their behaviors are instinctual.

I understand that the word 'exclusively' seems extreme, and that the dichotomy between instinctual and noninstinctual behavior may seem arbitrary, but try to think of it this way:

Behaviors, if sufficiently intelligent, can be motivated by more than pure instinct and thus can deserve the term noninstinctual; however, scientists have studied many organisms and have never observed such advanced behaviors in organisms without many neurons. Thus, if all insects do not have many neurons, no insect's behavior is capable of rising above pure instinct and earning the description noninstinctual.

Viewed this way, it becomes clear that all behavior must, by definition, be either instinctual or noninstinctual, since the gray area is eliminated by the way we define the terms.

I hope that helps! Keep working hard.

[adlindsey]

I'm having some confusion with the way I drew my diagrams. My 1st attempt at diagramming I have:

1st sentence: ~FB (flexible behavior) ~R (reasoning); with the contrapositive, R FB. I substituted instinctual behavior with ~FB to keep it consistent.

2nd sentence: FB LNN (large number neurons); contrapositive, ~LNN ~FB

I connected the contrapositive from the 1st sentence with the original from the 2nd sentence to form:
R LNN. The contrapositive of this is ~LNN ~R. From this, for some reason I got
~LNN ~R ~FB. I know adding the ~FB is a mistaken reversal. This is where my confusion comes in, since it sounds like it can work out, making it somewhat of a bi-conditional.

I also drew the diagram another way, which it helped he understand it better, but don't know if it's right or how to go about doing a contrapositive.

1st sentence: IB (instinctual behavior) ~R & FNC(fewer nerve cells). I'm not sure how to do the contrapositive on this one.
2nd sentence: NIB (non instinctual behavior) LNN; contrapositive, ~LNN ~NIB
3rd sentence: INSB (insect brain) ~LNN; contrapositive, LNN ~INSB

I then connected INSB ~LNN ~NIB or NIB LNN ~INSB

My last question would be if FNC=~LNN; is fewer nerve cells interchangeable with not large number of neurons?

[Jonathan Evans]

Adlinsey,

First off, kudos to your diligence with working through this problem. You clearly have a grasp of some of the core concepts of conditional reasoning.

However, I encourage you not to create a complicated morass for yourself when you're dealing with LR questions. Occasionally, I observe students diving in headfirst into symbolizations of stimuli without giving adequate thought to what is significant and what is insignificant. In effect, sometimes people do not give the necessary thought to the organization of the problem before they get started with the symbols. Symbolization is not a substitute for your own reasoning; it is a supplement and an aid to it.

Thus when you first read through a stimulus, read it all the way through. Try to describe to yourself what's going on. In this case, you might observe something like this:

"Okay, so these insects can use instincts to do complex stuff, instinct doesn't use reasoning or need a lot of neurons. Also, it says non-instinct needs a lot of neurons, and no insects have a lot of neurons."

Try to distill the stimulus down to its key components. What matters? Well, if you spot conditional language, you need to zero in on it. Establish common terms or ideas. Without symbolizing, try to prephrase any connections you observe. Perhaps ask youself: "So what? Do I know anything else from this?"

You might notice that it seems pretty clear that insects can't do non-instinct stuff, so they must be stuck with only instinct. That's your prephrase. If you got this, you're good to go. If you want to double check your reasoning with symbols, be sure to keep your variables consistent and concise. Do not add extra, unnecessary steps.

For instance, this stimulus can concisely be represented as:

1) IB ~R
2) ~IB MNC
3) Insects ~MNC

From the contrapositive of (2) we get ~MNC IB. From (3) combined with the contrapositive of (2) we get:

Insects ~MNC IB

Notice that this is a fun academic exercise but likely more than what is necessary to get the question right.

[yrivers]

Hi,

Everything makes sense and the explanations on this thread are super helpful!

I got to the prephrase, noting that insects do not have non instinctual behavior. My question is how do we then jump to the conclusion that it must have instinctual behavior? What part of the stimulus should we refer to in order to prove that an insect must have at least instinctual or non instinctual behavior? What if it has neither?

Thanks,
Yaesul

[Adam Tyson]

The answer, Yaesul, is in what we call a two-value system. The author has divided all behavior into two categories - instinctual and noninstinctual. Every behavior must logically fit into one of these two groups, simply because "noninstinctual" can only mean everything that is not instinctual. Once we know that noninstinctual behavior isn't possible for insects, that leaves only one other option - instinctual. There is nothing else! You're either here, or you're not here. My alma mater is either a public school or else it is not a public school. My neighbor either did go to Las Vegas or he did not go to Las Vegas.

So I'll toss this one back to you - if an insect's behavior is not noninstinctual, what else could it be? What else is there other than instinctual?

That's the power of a two-value system. You can divide the world neatly into two parts, and if you aren't in one part then you must be in the other. Life rarely works that cleanly, but logic, and the LSAT, frequently does.

Enjoy that, or else do not enjoy that!

[jessicamorehead]

I have my diagram as follows:

insect brain/behavior --> NOT large number of neurons --> NOT capable of instinctual behavior.

Answer choice B (the correct answer) says: "Insect behavior is exclusively instinctual." How can we prove that insect behavior is EXCLUSIVELY instinctual? Don't we just know that it is NOT instinctual? What if there is another behavior that the animal possesses that is neither instinctual nor non-instinctual?

Also, what makes answer choice A incorrect? Elaborate brain mechanisms --> large number of neurons --> NOT an insect brain/behavior. So if that is all we know, we cannot infer if it is instinctual or non-instinctual?