The Most Depressing LSAT Question Ever
A few months ago I came across the most depressing LSAT question ever. You can find it in PT50, S4, Q15. I’ll paraphrase it for you:
If you live without constant awareness of the fragile and fleeting nature of human life, then you have a mind clouded with illusion. Yet people who are constantly aware of the fragile and fleeting nature of human life are sure to taint their emotional disposition on life.
Whoa! And now for the equally depressing question and answer: The above statements, if true, most strongly support which one of the following?
CORRECT ANSWER: Everyone whose emotional outlook on existence is untainted has a mind clouded by illusion.
In this problem, there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who see reality as it really is and are depressed, and those who are delusional.
Hand me the rose-colored glasses!
As it turns out, there may actually be some support for this idea in neuroscience.
In Who’s In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain, neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga discusses fascinating research on the brain, in particular, how the two hemispheres differ. We’re all familiar with the terms “left brain” and “right brain.” (Right brain people are the artistic ones who are always losing their keys and can’t do their taxes. Left brain people are good at things like writing essays and debating.) Popular terminology aside, it’s true that the hemispheres specialize in different things. The right hemisphere of the brain is more literal and spacially oriented. The left hemisphere deals with language. It also makes inferences–in the real world sense, not the LSAT sense. That is, it uses information to construct narratives around the facts you are aware of in order to make sense of things. The left hemisphere does this even when the stories it is constructing are false. It appears, Gazzaniga argues, we have a compulsion to make sense of the world, even if that means confabulating–and that compulsion is found in our left brains.
And here’s where it gets even more interesting. It turns out that patients with left frontal lobe lesions “tend not to be able to engage in denial, rationalization or confabulatory gap-filling.” As a result? They often become depressed.
Maybe the gloomy authors of Prep Test 50 weren’t so off base.
Cheers to illusion!
Mary Adkins is one of Manhattan LSAT’s 99th percentile rock star instructors based out of New York City. She’s also available for Private Tutoring, both in NYC and Live Online.