Help logical reasoning Forum

[tequilawine]

Taylor: From observing close friends and relatives, it is clear to me that telepathy is indeed possible between people with close psychic ties. The amazing frequency with which a good friends or family member knows what one is thinking or feeling cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence.

Taylor's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it is

B fails to address a highly plausible alternative explanation for all instances of the observed phenomenon

E appeals to a premise one would accept only if one already accepted the truth of the conclusion

The right answer is B. I choose E.

[RZ5646]

B is what I immediately thought when I was reading the stimulus: they can predict each other's thoughts because they're very familiar with each other's patterns of thought. They are "attuned" to each other, but not in the sense that they are picking up cosmic vibrations or some other such nonsense.

You should be able to see why E is not true if you break it down into premise and conclusion.

Conclusion: telepathy is indeed possible between people with close psychic ties
Premise: The amazing frequency with which a good friend or family member knows what one is thinking or feeling cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence

Note that his premise is actually plausible; it's the way he jumps from "not coincidence" to "must be telepathy" that's the problem. This is why it's not the case that "one can only accept the premise if one accepts the conclusion." I can also think that it can't be explained by coincidence but propose some explanation other than telepathy. Thus E is not correct.

The tricky part about this is that the use of the word "psychic" in the conclusion arguably presupposes the possibility of telepathy, but that's not certain and in any case that's in the conclusion, not the premise, which is what E is about.

[tequilawine]

thank you got it

[mornincounselor]

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