LSAT 110 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q12

LR Question 12 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The five senses have traditionally been viewed as…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: Synethesiacs have senses that do not respect the usual five boundaries.

REASONING: Some people taste a banana and claim they taste blue or see a color and say that it has a smell.

ANALYSIS: I’m surprised this question exists. Normally the LSAT is pretty politically correct. But in this case we weaken the conclusion by showing that synesthesiacs are crazy people and we can’t trust what they claim to see or smell.

Seriously.

I’ve got a friend who is synesthesiac. She’s pretty smart and seems to understand the words she uses. What a weird question, especially since the LSAT is usually very sensitive to minority groups.

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1. CORRECT. This means that when a synesthesiac said they taste purple, they really meant to say “tastes sweet!” or something like that. If synesthesiacs can’t use or understand words then it’s hard for us to trust them when they say they have different senses than we do. 
2. This strengthens the argument. 
3. This would support the idea that there is a condition called synesthesia and that synesthesiacs’ senses are different from ours.
4. This supports the idea that the phenomenon exists worldwide.
5. This suggest that synesthesiacs really do have certain senses that are different than normal. It’s possible to use drugs to shut off the other senses. E.g. anesthetics turn off the sense of touch/feeling.