Hi there -- I just realized that it's not totally clear to me how to treat conditionals in logic games when you create a hypothetical scenario that fulfills the necessary condition.
For example. I am looking at Practice Test 72, Section 4, questions 13-18 on artifacts from Iceland, Norway, or Sweden.
The final rule in the game is a conditional: If V originated in Iceland, then Z originated in Sweden.
During this game in particular, I found myself putting a Z in the Sweden column of my diagram playing out hypothetical scenarios and then not knowing whether that forces V into Iceland or not. My inclination is to think that the necessary can be fulfilled without the sufficient being filled since it would be an illegal reversal to assume that Z in Sweden --> V in Iceland.
Any tips on how to think about this? Very confused now after trying to remember what I've been doing in previous tests and would like to have a better understanding before heading into the test.
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- alejandrac29
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Re: Conditional rules and scenarios
Your understanding sounds correct!
One of the reasons why we write conditional logic with an arrow is to remind our brain and eyes that these rules can only be read from left to right.
V-ice ----> Z-swe
If you have Z in Sweden, you can see that nothing follows from that, because there is no arrow that goes from Z-swe anywhere.
Another way to think about this is to simply put V somewhere BESIDES iceland and see if you're breaking the rule. Let's say that both V and Z are in Sweden.
The rule says, "If V is in Iceland ...."
Okay, well, "is V in Iceland?"
No, we just said it's in Sweden.
If V is not in Iceland, then this "If V is in Iceland" rule doesn't apply. Thus, it doesn't matter what the 2nd half of the rule even says. If the first half doesn't apply to our case, then it's irrelevant to us.
Suppose you were reading instructions for how to submit your application to Harvard, and one instruction said,
"If you are the child of a Prussian czar, then you must ..."
You'd stop reading immediately. You're not the child of a Prussian czar, so who cares? It doesn't apply to you, so there's no way you could break that rule.
Let me know if any of that was confusing. And if you ARE the child of a Prussian czar, my apologies, Your Majesty. Please don't have me killed.
One of the reasons why we write conditional logic with an arrow is to remind our brain and eyes that these rules can only be read from left to right.
V-ice ----> Z-swe
If you have Z in Sweden, you can see that nothing follows from that, because there is no arrow that goes from Z-swe anywhere.
Another way to think about this is to simply put V somewhere BESIDES iceland and see if you're breaking the rule. Let's say that both V and Z are in Sweden.
The rule says, "If V is in Iceland ...."
Okay, well, "is V in Iceland?"
No, we just said it's in Sweden.
If V is not in Iceland, then this "If V is in Iceland" rule doesn't apply. Thus, it doesn't matter what the 2nd half of the rule even says. If the first half doesn't apply to our case, then it's irrelevant to us.
Suppose you were reading instructions for how to submit your application to Harvard, and one instruction said,
"If you are the child of a Prussian czar, then you must ..."
You'd stop reading immediately. You're not the child of a Prussian czar, so who cares? It doesn't apply to you, so there's no way you could break that rule.
Let me know if any of that was confusing. And if you ARE the child of a Prussian czar, my apologies, Your Majesty. Please don't have me killed.
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