Fruit of the Contemplative Life
Fruit of the contemplative life: => General Discussion => : Alexander November 02, 2019, 12:14:20 AM
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Hello all,
My grandmother has been forgetting things recently, which has caused me to start pondering this question. I had not known much about dementia, but it looks like it will become more and more prevalent a question as humans start living longer. Statistically, it becomes more likely the older one becomes - the result of the physical aging of the brain.
I was wondering your thoughts on this phenomenon; on its relationship to the nonphysical state; and on the correct action one should take should one be confronted by this in old age.
1. On the one hand, I was pondering it in regard to the idea of the "Lethe" - the river of forgetting in Greek mythology. Plato gives the allegory that we drink from this river in death, and thus forget everything in the transition to the next birth. It seems interesting to me that dementia is a kind of early Lethe, where one forgets everything prior to death.
2. Yet this raises an interesting question: whether the forgetting is a product of the physical deterioration of the brain, or not. That is: if one could go OOB, would one recall one's memories and lose the forgetting? Or do the effects of dementia persist?
The idea one loses one's memories seems like an unfortunate end, especially if one led a noble life. Yet it reminds me of a couple of my personal heroes and the end of life paths they took.
1. Socrates, for instance, explains that one of his reasons for not escaping the hemlock is that it is a kind of euthanasia. He explains in one of the dialogues that should he persist in living, he intuits he will become senile. Thus, it is a kind of voluntary death.
2. And the other case is the Buddha, who in the sutras famously chose to eat spoiled food, as another kind of voluntary death.
In the Christian tradition, the idea of voluntary death is extremely taboo - sometimes to the extent of favoring an unnatural extension of life in very painful conditions. So, I am just wondering your thoughts on this. Whether it is an ethical decision to choose voluntary death in the face of the forgetting, or not - or any other thoughts on it. :)