Q11 - Science Fiction creates an appetite

[gradycampion]

Nec. Assumption question.

Conc: science fiction has caused an unproductive dissatisfaction
Prem: SF creates appetite for exploration
Prem: Appetite is and will be unsatisfied
Prem: Gaps between reality and expectations cause discontent.
---
The glaring hole in the argument is that an unsatisfied appetite is somehow related to reality and expectations of some folks.

A. - TCR - the only answer choice that links the unsatisfied appetite with reality / expectations.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great synopsis.

I don't know if it's a glaring gap to everyone, but, I agree that this is definitely one of those "provide the missing link" assumption answers that are very possible to predict before we even hit the answer choices.

I typically figure out the missing link by reverse-engineering the wording in the conclusion:

CONC:
Sci-Fi has created an unproductive dissatisfaction

I ask myself, "what did they tell me about 'Sci-Fi'?"
(Sci-Fi creates appetites that can't be satisfied)

"What did they tell me about 'unproductive dissatisfaction'?"
(discontentment = dissatisfaction, which is caused by gaps between expectation and reality)

Since both ideas in the conclusion match up with a premise idea, the missing link is really between the two premise ideas.

We need "unsatisfied appetites" to match up with "gap between reality and expectation".

== other answers =

(B) You don't need to read any farther than to the comma. If you ever see an answer phrased conditionally that starts "IF conclusion ...", it is guaranteed to be wrong.

(C) The argument only discusses the creation/satisfaction of the appetite for interstellar space exploration. The author doesn't comment on (and thus doesn't need to assume anything about) any other appetites sci-fi creates. "Few, if any" is extreme wording ... a big red-flag on Necessary Assumption

(D) "Most" is wrong in Necessary Assumption answer choices 99% of the time you see it. Whether 49% / 51% of ppl have a certain expectation is not a crucial distinction.

(E) Similar to (B), this answer choice arranges ideas from the argument in a bogus conditional fashion. There are two conditional arrangements we would be happy to see:
Prem --> Conc
and
~Conc --> ~Prem

What (E) gives us is essentially
~Prem --> ~Conc

Keep up the good work!

[erikwoodward10]

(B) You don't need to read any farther than to the comma. If you ever see an answer phrased conditionally that starts "IF conclusion ...", it is guaranteed to be wrong.

(E) Similar to (B), this answer choice arranges ideas from the argument in a bogus conditional fashion. There are two conditional arrangements we would be happy to see:
Prem --> Conc
and
~Conc --> ~Prem

What (E) gives us is essentially
~Prem --> ~Conc

Keep up the good work!

Regarding your explanation for both B and E, I think that this approach only works for SA questions. SA questions require us to use the evidence to prove the conclusion, so we can't start by assuming the conclusion to be true. We need the conclusion to be the logical consequence of the premises, so it must be the NC and can never be the SC.

However, this is a NA question. I think it would be possible for an answer choice that starts with the conclusion to be valid in a NA question. Something like:

Apples-->Food.

Healthy-->Good.
--------------------
C: apples-->good.

Now the SA answer to this question would be food-->healthy. But wouldn't a NA also be "Good-->we have the ability to determine what is good vs. what is bad"? This is an assumption that is technically required for the conclusion to be valid. If we don't have that ability, then we can't make the determination that apples-->good.

[ohthatpatrick]

(respectfully) no, it applies to NA as well ... and to Principle-Justify.

In your example, you're saying we have to assume "if something is good, then we have the ability to determine whether something is good"?

First of all, does that sound anything like an LSAT answer choice?

Secondly, a claim can be true even if we lack the ability to determine it.

CLAIM: there is intelligent life somewhere else in our universe.

That claim has an actual truth value. It is true or false, despite the fact that we currently lack any ability to ascertain its truth value.

Your example was also weird because you put a conditional statement in the conclusion. That sort of muddies the point / tactic being discussed.

The idea is that if the author argued that
given the truth of this PREMISE, it follows that this CONCLUSION is true

then she in no way needs to assume that
given the truth of this CONCLUSION, something else follows.

The boundary line of her argument is the truth value of that conclusion. Once you start trying to go to THE NEXT IDEA, you're leaving the scope of her argument.

(I can't believe I just uttered "the boundary line of her argument is the truth value of that conclusion". WTF does that mean?)

If you were watching a football game and arguing that the Cowboys would score a touchdown on this possession, you are in no way making an assumption that starts "IF they score a touchdown, then ...."

You're only staking a claim to whether or not THIS touchdown happens, not what would follow FROM that.

[juneby01]

Hello. Ohthatpatrick

Combining the two premises is that a way to do most of the NA questions that have more than one premise? And does the new term in the conclusion always appear in the answer?

[seychelles1718]

I totally misunderstood the stimulus because I was certain the conclusion was "Unfortunately, this appetite cannot be satisfied with any technology humanity will soon possess."
I thought "gaps between expectations and reality spur discontent" is the premise that supports the intermediate conclusion, which is "one effect of science fiction has been to create an unproductive dissatisfaction with the way the world actually is."

Because I could see the dissatisfaction is supported by discontent, I tried to link the "gaps between expectations and reality" with "cannot be satisfied with any technology...possess." But because I incorrectly identified the main conclusion of the argument, the direction of the conditional is a reverse.

I was so sure that the 2nd sentence ("Unfortunately...") was the main conclusion because it indicates the author's opinion and thought the rest of the stimulus supported the sentence.

As I reviewed, I kept trying to correct my thought process but I just can't fully convince myself why it can't be the main conclusion... can someone please help me with this?

Thanks a lot!

[ohthatpatrick]

If we say that this is the
CONCLUSION:
"The appetite for interstellar space exploration can't be satisfied with any technology humanity will soon possess"

and asked "Why? What are your supporting reasons for why I should believe that?"

Is there anything in the argument that sounds like a cogent response?

Supporting ideas for that claim would sound like:
"Exploring even the closest star system would involve a journey of over 100 light years. We currently don't have the technology to go more than 1 light year, and we won't have technology to go farther any time soon. Humans would have to be cryogenically frozen for the journey, since the journey lasts more than a human lifetime, and we also won't soon have the technology to freeze humans for a 100 year journey and unfreeze them when they arrive."

Nothing in the argument sounds close to supporting why our current/forthcoming technology is ill equipped to allow for interstellar space exploration.

A claim can't be a CONCLUSION if there weren't "reasons why" presented.

[LukeM22]

Just wanted to bounce off a thought I had on why the logic gap wasn't obvious. I initially missed the gap and in 20-20 hindsight it does make total sense that satisfying of an appetite does not necessarily entail expectations (per the first post). However, something that tripped me up was that the word satisfy is used in two very different ways here: the first use of satisfy doesn't necessitate the existence of expectations, but the second use ("dissatisfaction with the way the world actually is") wouldn't make sense unless there were existing expectations of what the world should be like to begin with. Was this an intentional double-usage meant to trick careless readers, or should this have been something immediately obvious?

[ohthatpatrick]

I can't speak to the motivations of whether it was there to trick or complicate the readability.

I never thought about that part of the conclusion beyond making a synonym lock between "discontent" and "dissatisfied".

I saw the argument as trying to be this:

CONC: Sci-fi leads to discontent
(why?)
EVID: Sci-fi leads to unsatisfied appetites, and gaps between expect/reality lead to discontent

To me, "discontent" and "dissatisfaction" were interchangeable enough to accept them as copies of the same idea.

But "unsatisfied appetites" and "gap between expectation and reality" were too different to accept as copies of the same idea.