#22 - No one knows what purposes, if any, dreams serve

[saygracealways]

Hi PowerScore,

I was wondering if you could evaluate my process of thinking for this question. I interpreted the second sentence to trigger a causal relationship ("dreams are PRODUCED WHEN the brain is erasing parasitic connections"):
Cause (brain erases parasitic connections) Effect (we dream).

The stimulus then says that the fact that the spiny anteater has a very large brain provides some confirmation for the hypothesis because it predicts that (Conditional Reasoning: if animal does not dream but memory is not clogged animal must have extra brain space for the non-erased parasitic connections). This strengthens the causal relationship (brain erases parasitic connections we dream) because it shows that in the case of the spiny anteater, when the cause did not occur (the anteater has non-erased parasitic connections), the effect also did not occur (the anteater did not dream). Or in other terms, when the effect did not occur (the anteater did not dream), the cause did not occur (the anteater has non-erased parasitic connections). The cause and effect have this short of "biconditional" relationship because in the LSAT, arguments assume that there is only one stated cause of the effect.

Answer (C) is therefore correct because "when a mammal that would normally dream is prevented from dreaming" (meaning effect does not occur), "the functioning of its memory will be impaired" (the cause does not occur - parasitic connections are not erased, which means the brain will still be clogged with memories, impairing the regular functioning of memory).

I had originally chosen (D) as the answer choice but I do realize that it's an unsupported inference because even if the person dreams and has his/her meaningless associations of ideas erased, that doesn't necessarily mean that that the dream the person dreamt consisted of ONLY meaningless associations of ideas. This is irrelevant to supporting the hypothesis.

I do realize that I may be "forcing" the stimulus into a causal reasoning scenario but please let me know if I am on track. Thank you so much!

[SwanQueen]

Hello,

I chose the correct answer choice, but needed clarification as to why (D) is incorrect.

If a person is having a "dream [involving] meaningful connections", then it is likely because the dream has effectively erased all parasitic - meaningless - connections. Although this is likely accurate, we cannot know for certain, since the hypothesis only talks about the erasure of parasitic connections, and not about what happens when ALL those parasitic connections are erased.

Does the above make any sense?

Also, is my usage of "all" appropriate?

Thanks in advance!

[g_lawyered]

Hi,
I understand why answer choice E (which is the one I selected) is incorrect. But I don't see why answer choice C is correct. The reason why I didn't like the wording of answer choice C and why I didn't chose it was because it states "mammal prevented from dreaming". I didn't see anything in the stimulus nor hypothesis that mentions mammals that are prevented from dreaming that would support this answer. I only saw that the only mammal that isn't included is the anteater. Can you please explain how that wording in answer choice C is supported by the hypothesis.

Thanks in advance!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi,
I understand why answer choice E (which is the one I selected) is incorrect. But I don't see why answer choice C is correct. The reason why I didn't like the wording of answer choice C and why I didn't chose it was because it states "mammal prevented from dreaming". I didn't see anything in the stimulus nor hypothesis that mentions mammals that are prevented from dreaming that would support this answer. I only saw that the only mammal that isn't included is the anteater. Can you please explain how that wording in answer choice C is supported by the hypothesis.

Thanks in advance!

Hi G,

Sometimes a hypothetical fact introduced into a Must Be True answer (like the hypothetical of a "mammal that would normally dream" being prevented from dreaming) is "covered by" the facts of the stimulus in a way that allows us to draw inferences from it. This is because the hypothetical fact fits within a category that the stimulus gives us definitive information about. In this stimulus, the parasitic connection hypothesis provides definitive information about the category of mammals that normally dream (which is all mammals except the spiny anteater). We're told that such mammals "would need extra memory space for [] parasitic connections" if they did not dream (including if they were prevented from dreaming!). Furthermore we're told that the spiny anteater is "seen as anomalous" for its brain size. So we know that all mammals except the spiny anteater have smaller brains, and that such mammals would need extra memory space for parasitic connections if they didn't dream. This makes it extremely likely that if they didn't dream (e.g. because they were prevented from dreaming), they wouldn't have enough brain space for the parasitic connections that would accumulate, impairing their memories.

It's a tricky question, but you have to think about whether the stimulus gives you enough information about the other characteristics of the hypothetical group being discussed that you can draw an additional inference from some hypothetical new piece of information about that group. In this case, you can!

I hope this helps!

[g_lawyered]

Hi Jeremy,
Ahhhhh. I see what you mean about the hypothetical in answer choice C meaning the same the the hypothesis in the stimulus states. I tend to stay away from trying to relate information from the answer choices into the stimulus if it's not the same because then I feel like I made an incorrect inference. I typically read the answer choice and compare it to the stimulus and if I don't see that it's related/mentioned in the stimulus I eliminate that answer. But I guess I have to keep a closer look on the wording.
Thanks for your explanation!

Gabriela

[SammyWu11201]

Hey! Can someone please tell me if this is a correct possible reasoning to eliminate AC D?

"According to one hypothesis, dreams are produced when the brain is erasing "parasitic connections" (meaningless, accidental connections between ideas)...."

If you diagram that as a conditional, it would be erasing parasitic connections --> dreams. The stimulus only tells us that erasing these meaningless, accidental ideas happen in the sufficient condition, but AC D is trying to go backwards and say that there IS meaningless, accidental conditions between ideas (something that happens in the sufficient), but we don't know that for sure.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Sammy,

Is this conditional though? We don't see conditional language there, we see causal language. The process of removing these connections leads to dreams.

Answer choice (D) is incorrect because we can't draw any inferences about what dreams produce. Removing connections causes dreams, but what do dreams themselves cause? It could be those meaningful connections.

Let's think about a parallel sort of claim. Clouds produce rain. This parallels removing connections produces dreams.

From our claim, we can't tell anything about what rain produces. It might produce puddles. Or not. It might produce floods. Or not. We can't draw anything about what comes from rain.

Similarly we can't determine what comes from dreams. It could be meaningful connections. Or not.

Hope that helps!

[raiyanhossain]

There is this line

"According to one hypothesis, dreams are produced when the brain is erasing "parasitic connections" which would otherwise clog up our memories."

If I wanted to make this into conditional logic format should it be Dreams -> NOT Clog or is it NOT dream -> Clog?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

You really can't read that line conditionally, raiyanhossain. The term "produces" is a causal term. We don't know the exact relationship between dreams and clogging. The causal relationship is that erasing connections CAUSES dreams. If you weren't erasing connections, then you might have a clog according to this stimulus.

Erasing connection CAUSES dreams
Erasing connections CAUSES fewer clogs

From those two, we can't draw anything between clogs and dreams.

Hope that helps!

[anureet]

Hello, Just a quick question

The reason why I eliminated C was that I thought the language used was too strong. The stimulus stated that " memories would be clogged". I thought that clogging and impairing are two different things. In the dictionary, impair means damaged, which is stronger than the term clogged therefore I eliminated this answer choice.