#15 - Sonya: Anyone who lives without constant awareness of

[Clay Cooper]

Hi DrewKing,

Thanks for your question.

I think you are diagramming the stimulus incorrectly. Remember that 'without' follows the unless formula (see lesson 2). The formula works like this: take the condition modified by the 'without', and place it on the right as the necessary condition. Then, take the other condition, negate it, and place it on the left, as the sufficient condition.

So, in the first sentence, we get this:

~mind clouded constant awareness

and its contrapositive (which, remember, we arrive at by switching-and-negating) is:

~constant awareness mind clouded.

The second sentence works out this way:

cognizant of fragility tainted emotional outlook

and its contrapositive:

~tainted emotional outlook ~cognizant of fragility

So, as long as we are okay with equating the terms constant awareness and cognizant of fragility, we can link the original versions of each rule to arrive at the following (which is answer choice D):

~mind clouded tainted emotional outlook.

Thus we link the original rules to form the rule given in answer choice D, which therefore must be true and is correct. Does that help?

[DrewKing]

yes it does, thank you Clay. Oh, btw this post should be in Lesson 2 homework #15. I almost could not find the question, i was looking all over lesson 4 in the book lol. Thank you buddy.

[Vickyd916]

I am confused at some of the answers posted for this question.

Robert Carroll's post on Wed Sep 30, 2015 is exactly how I diagrammed my answer, but the first answer by the administrator is the opposite of what is diagrammed in Robert's post. How is that possible?

[Jon Denning]

Hi Vicky - thanks for the comment, and welcome to the Forum!

First, let me say congrats: if your diagrams match Robert's then you solved this question correctly! That's no small feat, as you can probably tell from the number of others asking about this one

However, if you take another look at those two posts—the initial post from an Administrator and Robert Carroll's later reply—you'll see that they're actually identical to one another!

I'll break them down to hopefully clarify (and in doing so I'll standardize any abbreviations used so you can better see the relationship):

The first, Administrator post gives us this:

constant awareness mind clouded by illusion;
mind clouded by illusion constant awareness

constant awareness tainted emotional outlook;
tainted emotional outlook constant awareness

What should stand out there is that we have a shared term: constant awareness

That means that we can potentially make a chain using that shared term as the connecting piece, provided that it keeps all of our arrows pointing in the same direction. Does it? Yes! Here's what that looks like:

mind clouded by illusion constant awareness tainted emotional outlook

And from that we can show its contrapositive:

tainted emotional outlook constant awareness mind clouded by illusion


Now take another look at Robert's diagrams:

mind clouded by illusion constant awareness tainted emotional outlook

tainted emotional outlook constant awareness mind clouded by illusion

They're the same! Robert then takes us the rest of the way, drawing the two major inferences from the chains above:

mind clouded by illusion tainted emotional outlook

tainted emotional outlook mind clouded by illusion [this is answer choice (D)]


This is a tricky question where contrapositives and conditional linkage are heavily tested, but fortunately all of the explanations given so far are correct in how they set the relationships up

I hope that helps! Let me know if it's still unclear!

[Lawyered]

How can we gauge for it to be a Must Be True question?? Especially since it says "Most Strongly Support"? I messed that up.

Also, wasn't sure how it would be D. I was between A & C.

I wasn't able to realize perpetually cognizant of the fragility was the same as constant awareness. It sounds like a duh right now but in the heat of the moment, against the clock, last section... wasn't able to and hence C made sense. B/D/E were losers.

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True-SN. The correct answer choice is (D)

Here we have the following conditional statements (each followed by its contrapositive):

const. awareness → clouded by illusion; clouded by illusion → const. awareness
constant awareness → tainted outlook; tainted outlook → const. awareness
The second contrapositive above is stated in correct answer choice (D). None of the other answer choices are supported by the stimulus.

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Lawyered,

The phrase "Most Strongly Supported" will always indicate a Must Be True question.

Answer choice (C) tells us that is it impossible to live without some self-deception. This idea of self-deception is not mentioned in the stimulus. We can possibly infer that self-deception is equivalent to having a mind not clouded by illusion. Even in this case however, the author makes no claim that everyone has a mind clouded by illusion.

Answer choice (E) makes a moral judgement: "it is better to..." The stimulus makes no such judgement. It only tells us the consequences of two opposing states of mind, without making a recommendation for which is better.

[chian9010]

I have a little confused about "AND" and "OR" in this stimulus

Based on the stimulus, I have created the following diagram:

Premise 1:
No awareness of fragility AND No awareness of precariousness clouded by illusion

Premise 2:
awareness of fragility AND awareness of precariousness taint their emotional outlook on existence


D) talks about people whose emotional outlook is untainted
No taint emotional outlook No awareness of fragility OR No awareness of precariousness

However, "No awareness of fragility OR No awareness of precariousness" IS NOT THE SAME AS "No awareness of fragility AND No awareness of precariousness".

Therefore, i am confused how D can concludes that those people whose emotional outlook is untainted has a mind clouded by illusion (I don't think "A or B" is the same as "A and B")

Is there anything I did wrong? Please help clear my confusion!

Thank you!

Hi Vicky - thanks for the comment, and welcome to the Forum!

First, let me say congrats: if your diagrams match Robert's then you solved this question correctly! That's no small feat, as you can probably tell from the number of others asking about this one

However, if you take another look at those two posts—the initial post from an Administrator and Robert Carroll's later reply—you'll see that they're actually identical to one another!

I'll break them down to hopefully clarify (and in doing so I'll standardize any abbreviations used so you can better see the relationship):

The first, Administrator post gives us this:

constant awareness mind clouded by illusion;
mind clouded by illusion constant awareness

constant awareness tainted emotional outlook;
tainted emotional outlook constant awareness

What should stand out there is that we have a shared term: constant awareness

That means that we can potentially make a chain using that shared term as the connecting piece, provided that it keeps all of our arrows pointing in the same direction. Does it? Yes! Here's what that looks like:

mind clouded by illusion constant awareness tainted emotional outlook

And from that we can show its contrapositive:

tainted emotional outlook constant awareness mind clouded by illusion


Now take another look at Robert's diagrams:

mind clouded by illusion constant awareness tainted emotional outlook

tainted emotional outlook constant awareness mind clouded by illusion

They're the same! Robert then takes us the rest of the way, drawing the two major inferences from the chains above:

mind clouded by illusion tainted emotional outlook

tainted emotional outlook mind clouded by illusion [this is answer choice (D)]


This is a tricky question where contrapositives and conditional linkage are heavily tested, but fortunately all of the explanations given so far are correct in how they set the relationships up

I hope that helps! Let me know if it's still unclear!

[Brook Miscoski]

Chian,

The stimulus makes two assertions:

1. Unaware Illusion
2. Aware Tainted

Because awareness is a binary state (you must be aware or unaware, this not being quantum physics), it is perfectly acceptable to notate the choices as above, and it follows that a person will either live in illusion or have a tainted emotional outlook, which is (D). "Untainted" is, again, the flip side of the binary state (tainted or untainted). If you're untainted, you will live in illusion.

D isn't centered around an "AND" concept, it's centered around that binary state (must chose one of the two).

Also, note that I am focusing on "awareness" rather than chopping the stimulus up into bits that become harder to manage. Your Premise 1 is incorrect--you would need to write unaware of Fragility OR unaware of Precariousness illusion. When you used the except/without/unless technique, you were supposed to negate all of the elements of that condition, which flipped the AND to an OR. It's a simple mistake that could happen to anyone, which I ignored as even a possibility by not delving deeper than needed. Over time, you develop a sense of not only the technique but how to be most effective while using it.

[lilglowx]

Why is choice B "Either no one has a tainted emotional outlook on existence, or no one has a mind clouded by illusion" wrong?

NOT tainted ----> illusion
NOT illusion ----> tainted

[Jeremy Press]

Hi lilglowx,

The reason we cannot prove answer choice B from the stimulus is because we do not know how many people "live[] without constant awareness of the fragility and precariousness of human life," and we do not know how many people "are perpetually cognizant of the fragility and precariousness of human life." There could be some people (although they would be different people) in both of those groups, in which case there would also be at least some people who have a tainted emotional outlook and at least some people who have minds clouded by illusion.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy