Q20 - Pieces of music consist of sounds

[skapur777]

Well this one was strange.

Here is my answer choice reasoning. I picked A but realized that was really stupid of me. I was stuck between A and E (E being correct). Here is my reasoning:

A- without being conscious of the passage of time is not the 'temporal' sense being used here...nor is it ever used like that I'm pretty sure.
B- no, instant ruling out
C-irrelevant, who cares about the other commonalities
D- didn't exactly pick up on this, tempting but based on my experience with past LSAT questions, really unique detailed answer choices like this are seldom ever correct. regardless, i didn't rule out for that basis, i ruled out because i simply dont think that flaw is present.
E- okay, this is the correct answer BUT i don't see how. So what if the eye DID follow some random path. Why does a random path designate any sense of temporal dimension?

[noah]

Good review. To start, here's mine:

The conclusion is that music has a temporal dimension, but a painting does not. Why? Because in a painting there is no path that the eye must follow.

This is a flaw question, so what's the gap?

To debate this, couldn't there be some other reason that the painting is temporal (or, to be specific, that the looking at it is)? (E) plays on a version of this: couldn't it be that the eye follows some path and thus create a temporal experience? In essence, just because the path isn't set in stone doesn't mean there isn't a path that will create a temporal experience.

(A) is focused on consciousness of time, which is irrelevant - something could be a temporal experience without you being conscious that it it.

(B) is irrelevant - we're not interested in how music was defined. It was established that music is temporal, we want to know if the facts about paintings means we can conclude they aren't temporal.

(C) is out of scope - commonalities?

(D) is tempting in that it's complex. In short, (D) says that the argument is circular - that it assumes the conclusion is correct when it uses "reading" to describe looking at a painting. However, that use of the word doesn't depend on painting not being temporal. "Reading" doesn't imply a temporal experience or lack of (as far as we know from reading this argument).

I think you're right to be suspicious of (D) off the bat, especially with much simpler correct-seeming answers around.

As to your question about (E), it doesn't say the path is random. But, more to the point, the argument assumes that a designated path is required for a sense of time; perhaps a random path does create a sense of time.

Does that clear it up?

[sumukh09]

I chose D) mainly because I didn't know what the heck it meant and because I didn't like any of the other answers. I eliminated E) on the grounds that the argument in the stimulus didn't assume that "reading" a painting involves following no path if it did not follow a particular path. The stim just says that the viewer need not follow a "particular" path but I didn't think that had to necessarily entail that the viewer followed no path - the stim acknowledges that the viewer could very well follow a path but because it's not a "particular" path you can't ascribe temporal order to it. If E) were to say something like "the absence of a particular path that the eye must follow does not preclude the viewer from experiencing a temporal order by following a random path" then I would have jumped on E) and never looked back.

Can someone explain how the stim assumes that not following a particular path entails not following any path at all? I guess an analogy would be if you're given directions (a particular path) to someone's house but use an alternate route you're straying from the designated path but you're still traveling on a path - just not a particular one.

[noah]

I chose D) mainly because I didn't know what the heck it meant and because I didn't like any of the other answers. I eliminated E) on the grounds that the argument in the stimulus didn't assume that "reading" a painting involves following no path if it did not follow a particular path. The stim just says that the viewer need not follow a "particular" path but I didn't think that had to necessarily entail that the viewer followed no path - the stim acknowledges that the viewer could very well follow a path but because it's not a "particular" path you can't ascribe temporal order to it. If E) were to say something like "the absence of a particular path that the eye must follow does not preclude the viewer from experiencing a temporal order by following a random path" then I would have jumped on E) and never looked back.

Can someone explain how the stim assumes that not following a particular path entails not following any path at all? I guess an analogy would be if you're given directions (a particular path) to someone's house but use an alternate route you're straying from the designated path but you're still traveling on a path - just not a particular one.

Great question!

I agree that this is pretty subtle (and perhaps annoying). The gap, as I see it, is that not having a particular path means no temporal order. "But," our debater brains say, "couldn't there be some path, and thus some temporal order? Ah, yes, just because there's not a particular path, doesn't mean there isn't some temporal order." (E) doesn't say exactly that, but it's pretty close.

In the end, it comes down to whether you accept that having a path means a temporal order, and that comes down to a rather subtle move of thinking "following a path through a painting means dealing with one part at a time." Pretty tricky use of "temporal" and "path." As much as I am able to do so, I apologize on behalf of this question.

[james.h.meyers]

I chose D) mainly because I didn't know what the heck it meant and because I didn't like any of the other answers. I eliminated E) on the grounds that the argument in the stimulus didn't assume that "reading" a painting involves following no path if it did not follow a particular path. The stim just says that the viewer need not follow a "particular" path but I didn't think that had to necessarily entail that the viewer followed no path - the stim acknowledges that the viewer could very well follow a path but because it's not a "particular" path you can't ascribe temporal order to it. If E) were to say something like "the absence of a particular path that the eye must follow does not preclude the viewer from experiencing a temporal order by following a random path" then I would have jumped on E) and never looked back.

Can someone explain how the stim assumes that not following a particular path entails not following any path at all? I guess an analogy would be if you're given directions (a particular path) to someone's house but use an alternate route you're straying from the designated path but you're still traveling on a path - just not a particular one.

Great question!

I agree that this is pretty subtle (and perhaps annoying). The gap, as I see it, is that not having a particular path means no temporal order. "But," our debater brains say, "couldn't there be some path, and thus some temporal order? Ah, yes, just because there's not a particular path, doesn't mean there isn't some temporal order." (E) doesn't say exactly that, but it's pretty close.

In the end, it comes down to whether you accept that having a path means a temporal order, and that comes down to a rather subtle move of thinking "following a path through a painting means dealing with one part at a time." Pretty tricky use of "temporal" and "path." As much as I am able to do so, I apologize on behalf of this question.

I'm wondering if I brought in more info than I should have. I was able to eliminate (D) because I considered "reading" as something that would be temporal. We are talking about following path as one would do in music or a book so when we talk about "reading" a painting it implies a similar path/temporal aspect. (D) says that using the word "reading" presupposes the correctness of the conclusion, which is that a painting is NOT temporal, which is opposite.

So I'm wondering, does this sound right or am I bringing in a dangerous amount of info that might prove problematic on other problems?

[noah]

I'm wondering if I brought in more info than I should have. I was able to eliminate (D) because I considered "reading" as something that would be temporal. We are talking about following path as one would do in music or a book so when we talk about "reading" a painting it implies a similar path/temporal aspect. (D) says that using the word "reading" presupposes the correctness of the conclusion, which is that a painting is NOT temporal, which is opposite.

So I'm wondering, does this sound right or am I bringing in a dangerous amount of info that might prove problematic on other problems?

That's some fancy footwork! I really like your reasoning at the end--if the supposed assumption leads to the opposite conclusion than is really there, then that's not the assumption. However, I agree with your suspicion that we can't assume that reading is always temporal. Perhaps it's just referring to the act of using your eyes to gather information.

[ranishulman]

Can someone please tell me if this makes sense.

for the sake of this post: Temporal- definition by webster- "of or relating to time as opposed to eternity"- (doesn't imply follows an order)

The flaw in the argument is that it only mentions temporal dimension as an essential difference and leaves out ORDER. But if the reasoning was that viewing a painting follows no particular path then that should have been an essential difference included in the conclusion. Since (E) says that on the contrary viewing a painting can follow a path, the conclusion makes sense with mentioning only temporal dimension as the essential difference.

But wouldn't this be more like an assumption "need" question. Because if (E) weren't true then the conclusion would be missing a key distinction...order?

The way I see it, (E) isn't a flaw made in the argument but rather an answer that would get rid of the flaw in the argument, which is, it should've mentioned temporal ORDER and not temporal DIMENSION.

For answer (D)- if we were to assume that "read" means order, then we can say that "Reading" a painting follows some order and the essential distinction in the conclusion is temporal dimension without including ORDER. So if we were to rely on the metaphor of "read" then we can assume the conclusion is correct given that we have now classified painting as having a characteristic of order, and our conclusion seems right given that we have ASSUMED that reading means "order".

I apologize if this seems all over the place and will take any criticism because clearly i was wrong...