Comment by AQuantized 3 days ago
> You really don't want to end up with dementia and related illnesses, it totally sours everyone's view of you.
This seems like such an absurd conclusion to this, as though the opinions of other people of you are what matter when you functionally lose your personhood and then die.
Maybe a better focus would be that there often isn't a good way for a community to manage a person who suddenly becomes irrational because of an illness.
I am left wondering. Can’t people (in general) understand that Alzheimer’s changes a person fundamentally, irreversibly and forever until death follows? Many positive traits of personality disappear, the negative starts to dominate, I think mainly from fear and a subconscious awareness of what is being lost. That’s pretty much 101 of grieving when a loved one is struck with Alzheimer’s. The person has left. You continue caring for a body / a different person because of the relation you have to a former them. But please don’t connect the persons past deeds and being to the actions with Alzheimer’s.
For myself: I hope for assisted suicide before Alzheimer’s. I value me for me. Not-me I don’t value, and Alzheimer’s does not improve not-me over me. But people who cannot separate me from not-me (with whom not-me loses status for me)… I don’t care about them! (Philosophical mood.)
Very few people would choose to be unpopular, and unfortunately this type of behavior is decided by brain function, things like depression, from the beginning.
Either and or both?
I don’t want to go that way either. If I start losing my mind to Alzheimer’s or dementia I don’t want to slowly turn unrecognizable to those who love me, fuck that shit. Give me something suitable and I’ll do it my damn self if needs be.
FWIW I agree with you. I want to go out on my own terms if I get that sort of diagnosis. The only major health-related concern I have is that I'll some day experience a traumatic health event that immediately disables me and stops me from making that decision, whether legally (competency) or extralegally.
I know there are medical directives that can be put in place but they don't cover everything and they can't compel anyone to end my hypothetical misery, the most they can do is withdraw care.
There are lots of degenerative diseases particularly striking the various biological systems of the body. But neurodegeneration, whether Glio, ALS or dementia are especially cruel and horrific in that they attack and erode the patient's personality, a fundament of individuality and self.
In my experience having had a parent suffer this way, you lose them before they are dead and you grieve along the way. I can understand the "souring" phrasing - in that there is less affection for the altered person in the present even while feeling a duty for their care and a deep love for who they were.
I'm grateful for this story - it's powerful to see examples of autonomy at end of life - and contrasts starkly with the experiences many of us have with aging parents. End of life, at least in the US, can be deeply flawed and misery for all.
Valuing how others remember you is definitely a motivation in life for many. I respect that it is not your own, respect that it may be mine. It is by no means "absurd".
It is absurd because it places subjective opinions over objective goods. This is the vice of “human respect”. Human beings do not have a final say about others. They can opine, but opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one.
Sure, it is nice to be remembered well, if you deserve it, but I do not live for the opinions of others. This is slave mentality and pathetic. I care about being good, and if I am hated for that, then so be it. Sad, but better to be hated for being a good person than loved for being a mediocrity or a knave.
And to off yourself out of concern with how people remember you is a condemnation of our society, our lack of charity, our lack of magnanimity, and our selfish prioritization of convenience. Full throttle consumerism.
The definition of good is probably the closest to doing the opposite of inflicting pain on others. There’s very little chance that you will be hated by being good. So definitely behaving or being good is not so different than behaving in a way that other people don’t hate you.
> There’s very little chance that you will be hated by being good
Jesus, Socrates, anyone who stands up against an immoral hierarchy. Rethink your thought
> It is absurd because it places subjective opinions over objective goods.
Care to name even a single objective good, and explain how exactly it is objectively good?
Instead of naming something concrete, it makes more sense to define what the only legitimate basis for morality and the human good is, which is human nature. If you deny that, then there is indeed no possible objective basis for the good. You could not differentiate between any two human action. Decisions would be entirely arbitrary. It would make no difference what you did, except factually in the sense that you did one thing and not another.
If you observe any animal or living thing, you will generally see it behaving in ways that seek to actualize it as the kind of thing it is. The nature of a thing bounds the potentials it has, and so circumscribes the limits of what can be actualized; this is a basic feature of all things, living or not, that they are "causally composed", as it were. In any case, this activity is not necessarily conscious. No squirrel is thinking "Gee, I need to collect nuts to grow and nourish my body and avoid predators so that I can produce offspring and actualize X, Y, and Z." In such cases, the squirrel is moved by various inclinations and appetites whose proper satisfaction actualizes certain ends of "squirrelness". A good squirrel (not in the moral sense, but in the sense of it exemplifying squirrel nature) is one that is able to actualize these potentials and does so to realize its squirrel nature. A bad specimen is one that cannot or does not. So, if you get a squirrel addicted to meth, and all it does is do things that get it more hits of meth while neglecting or impeding the realization of its squirrel nature, then you have a failure or deviance opposed to the good of the squirrel. The same could be said of a squirrel that is lethargic or one that lacks limbs.
Human beings are no different in this general sense, save that human beings are able to a) comprehend their circumstances, at least somewhat, and b) choose between apprehended alternatives. This means human beings are moral agents. So, here, a human being bears a certain responsibility for his choices and actions. If he chooses to act against his nature, especially as a rational, moral, and social agent, then he is acting against his nature and thus against his good. And if he is acting in such a way while understanding that he is doing so, then he now also has moral culpability for his defective actions.
In short, to be the kind of thing you are by nature is what is good. The act in accord with your nature is what makes good actions. Death is not good per se, and to act to destroy yourself is opposed to your being human and thus to your good. To intentionally do so is morally evil. (This must distinguished from self-sacrifice for another, which can be in accord with human nature under certain circumstances, but it is not the case here with Kahneman.)
> Instead of naming something concrete, it makes more sense to define what the only legitimate basis for morality and the human good is, which is human nature. If you deny that, then there is indeed no possible objective basis for the good.
Quite the opposite - I agree with that, and that's why I think goodness is not an objectively evaluable property. At the risk of making you feel I'm twisting your words, you pretty much said it yourself: what the human good is, is at the very least subject to human nature. Therefore, your evaluation of goodness cannot be objective. You're at best speaking from the subjective perspective of a human being.
But if you now say this doesn't get to the heart of your overall reasoning, I agree.
Consider then if goodness is even more subjective than just being a human value - for example, imagine that individuals might have (if even just slightly but) differing natures and so differing values. This would mean that your evaluation of what's good and what the human nature is like is not going to be durable across people. Worse still, you may even consider scenarios where the nature of a person changes over time, or they may value different things given a specific context. This would mean that your evaluation of what's good and what's bad is no longer durable not just across people, but across contexts, situations, and even time itself.
Notably of course, this is logically indistinguishable from other people simply making a measurement error of the same supposedly objective property. So this all hinges on whether you (can) believe that instead of there being an ontic, fundamental property of goodness, one that you're properly accessing and others disagreeing aren't, your access is the same as anyone else's. And that regardless of whether such a property objectively exists, it may either not hold an observer invariant value, or you may never be able to tell to have learned that value.
Then if your claim also a mere subjective emanation, and an arguably mysterious one?
The subject receives the object in the mode of the subject, yes, but this does not mean that knowledge of the objective is impossible.
The point is he deserved to be remembered well but due to recency bias and the severity of whatever he did during the end stages of his disease he will not be. I personally suffered immense trauma in my early 20s when I moved to a really cheap place. My parents refused to believe me that there was a black mold and general mold problem in the place I was living and that it was causing me psychological distress and flaring up my eczema. Despite all evidence that I had they dismissed it because I had told them I was depressed beforehand. They are not very in touch with empathy or compassion or mental health. Very old-fashioned view that these things are character flaws which are not to be spoken of. Anyways they dismissed my concerns did not read my messages or view my pictures of personal property being destroyed and the landlord not responding to me, the whole rental was illegitimate and I had identified that early on they even ignored that I got a scalp infection which I had to take oral anti-fungal medication to get rid of. The preponderance of evidence was so overwhelming, but for whatever reason they could not admit I had been right and that they were wrong and refused to help me and actively discouraged me from taking legal action or even to move home for months. Eventually I was blessed with an extended relative who gave me shelter. During one of the worst parts of this period my parents even went so far as to assert that what was actually happening to me was the onset of paranoid schizophrenia. I was close to the right age and sex for it to happen. I knew that paranoid schizophrenics often become homeless and violent and the general awfulness of the condition. If it was not for my own investigation that there was no family history of it and a friend who believed what I was saying and told me that I needed to leave the house and then finally extended family I had a plan to no longer exist. This was partially out of not wanting to be remembered badly, but also so many other things like; not wanting to hurt my loved ones, not wanting to hurt strangers, not wanting to slowly degrade into an unstable and potentially dangerous person and of course the median life expectancy for that condition is so low. I lacked the constitution to allow myself to become someone who would likely damage the world and severely damage those close to me so my logical conclusion based on a false premise during those couple days was to nip it in the bud so to speak as it's a progressive condition. My relationship with my parents has not been the same since, but how could it be. I am forever indebted to a friend and extended family... they quite literally saved my life.
The end point being that with the parents I have there was nearly a guaranteed outcome of only objectively bad things happening for me, for them, for people around me. During that state I saw my plan as honorable and wrote it down in what I was to leave to explain my actions.
You were so close to genuine self-ownership in this post, especially with decrying slave morality - than you ended by getting spooked all over again.
You might enjoy “the unique and its property” by Max Stirner. An excellent philosophical book and especially relevant given that Alzheimer’s takes away the self…
My brother had schizophrenia. No one thought well of him. I guess he should have killed himself as well by the logic some are professing on here. Oh, he tried, but he ended up dying of heart disease.
> Maybe a better focus would be that there often isn't a good way for a community to manage a person who suddenly becomes irrational because of an illness.
Yes, this is the focus. Science has stalled when it comes to neurological disorders. But the response is love and understanding. I do not understand how someone would "sour" on a person because they have an illness. A very absurd conclusion indeed.
Dementia and Alzheimer is not something that can simply be managed throught treatment. It is an inexorable descent into suffering for both the person and its entourage with absolutely zero hope of getting better. At best in the last stages you get very short glimpses of normality within hours of confusions, frustrations, anger and pain.
If I am ever diagnosed with one of those, I absolutely want the chance to end my life before I reach a stage I become a burden to my loved ones and can't give a trustable consent. I'd rather go too soon than too late.
I’ve had a lot of people suffer in my life from health conditions, ranging from mental illness, heart disease, and cancer. And I’ve had to take care of them all at different times. Did I consider this a burden or a gift? Oh, it was hard, but does that mean it’s a burden?
If you think you’ll be a burden on your loved ones can we really say they’re your loved ones? This is a serious question. If you’re thinking that you’ll be a burden do you think that these people really love you?
At least I would want to let them use experimental drugs, or do anything to further the cause of curing Alzheimer’s.
But again, this is all far from the original article about an old man who decided to die because well, we don’t really know, he just didn’t see the point of living anymore.
Have you ever cared for someone with late stage Alzheimer or other forms of severe dementia? The reality of it is that a person who suffers from this is simply not the person you knew, by any measurable definition. They don't remember you, they may well fear and hate you. They change moods at a moment's notice, they live in a state of either lethargy or accute anxiety, suddenly waking up in a place that they don't recognize or remember ever living in, nor remembering how they got there. Their life essentially becomes a series of TikTok reels in which they are the main actor, or a vivid dream. Not only are they not the same "self" that you loved, they are usually not even a coherent "self" beyond a few tens of minutes.
And, just to make everything as heartwrenching as possible, in this series of short reels their mind is swiping through, they occasionally become the person you had loved, for some minutes. And you know that these moments will never get more common, only rarer, but you can't help but think that they're "still in there".
It is my firm belief that any sense of "me" would be long dead by this time. Keeping my body and scraps of my consciousness alive only to torment my loved ones, caregivers, and neighbors would be a cruelty that would serve no purpose. I hope that I don't ever have to make this choice, but I also hope that, if I am ever diagnosed, I will have the chance to make this choice and avoid such suffering.
> If you think you’ll be a burden on your loved ones can we really say they’re your loved ones? This is a serious question. If you’re thinking that you’ll be a burden do you think that these people really love you?
I think it’s a pretty fuckin dumb question.
Gatekeeping “love” behind service of ceaseless emotional toil with a smile is ridiculous.
Good lord, we have very different interpretations of ‘burden’. I had healthy, happy, typical children that I loved to bits and they were absolutely a burden! Some days I could barely deal.
Acknowledging that the things you love are a huge pain in the ass sometimes and keeping on loving them is perfectly healthy.
> If you’re thinking that you’ll be a burden do you think that these people really love you?
These are not mutually exclusive.
As a caregiver and survivor to family members with mental illness and dementia, yes I would say that someone can be a loved one and a burden. These aren't places on a single dimension, but totally different dimensions that can mix in amazing and terrible ways.
Yup. Ask me if I want to live. If I'm unable to answer and it's not reasonably expected that I will be able to answer in the future then the answer is no. I am the mind inside, not the body outside. If the mind is gone that's it, the body is worthless.
the conclusion is true, though obviously the worst part is that this guy spent at least a year in varying states of despair, anger, and even worse psychological terrors.
you don't want dementia because it damages and hurts you and everything and everyone around you
(my grandpa physically attacked grandma multiple times in his last year)
>This seems like such an absurd conclusion to this, as though the opinions of other people of you are what matter when you functionally lose your personhood and then die.
They do matter.
Being concerned with how your behavior affects your family or your community, and the opinion they have of you, above your own self-interest, is how good parents, good friends, good citizens, and so on, are made.
> Being concerned with how your behavior affects your family or your community, and the opinion they have of you, above your own self-interest, is how good parents, good friends, good citizens, and so on, are made.
You've changed the meaning behind the original comment in a subtle but important way. The original commenter wasn't concerned about their effects on other people, they were concerned about how the disease would ruin their public image. Maybe they didn't mean that but it's what they wrote.
This distinction matters because those people whose top priority is their public perception (i.e. social status) are never "good people". It's normal to care about your social status to some degree but it shouldn't be the first thing you consider.
My wife's grandma passed some years back due to dementia/Alzheimers. Her final memories of her were of struggling to change her diaper because she insisted "she didn't need a change" and being really racist.
I really don't want my family's last memories of me to be that. Yeah my wife remembers when her grandma was of sound mind, and has some good memories with her back then, but they stopped due to the disease.
Everyone should be entitled to their own opinions on how they want to be remembered. I would rather be allowed to pass in sane mind.
It's not so absurd. The only afterlife that exists (in a materialist sense) is what other people think of you. The only part of 'you' still around us quite literally just a memory in someone's head. That's not nothing.
Whether we should care about that or not is a philosophical conversation, I suppose. I would take the side of if we care about what people think about us when we are alive, surely we should care what they think of us when we are dead. Otherwise, we only value their opinion of us as a function of what they will do for/to us, which seems not great.
This is a maximalist view, in reality not feasible or scalable. Of course this is what we need to strive for, but aiming to decrease 'total unhappiness' with what we have, is a rational, if somewhat cynical, aim.
But even at aface value, more rational long-term approach would be to treat it, surely
This. Life is such a precious random occurrence that failing to protect it in the face [dementia|physical disabilities|etc] is the real tragedy.
It's not like life stops when someone (with a grave an irreversible condition that causes suffering) dies. It goes on with the young generations (i.e. the billions of them!). I think too much clinging to a single life causes the whole (which is more important) to suffer. That's not to say we shouldn't value and respect elders, but clinging to life excessively is ignorant and potentially cruel, in my humble opinion. I defend the right to die in the face of incurable diseases that cause a lot of anguish and suffering.
I think clinging to life is partially rooted in an egoist/solipsistic metaphysics that you yourself are all that matters (to yourself at least, of course). Relax, we're just a small part of the cosmos. Ancient and immortal :)
The alternative being when someone becomes inconvenient to others we should encourage their death? What good is compassion or empathy when the lesser in society could just go off and die, right? Why stop at incurable diseases? Political opponents, coworkers, nasty service workers, double parkers, lawyers, and many other groups cause a lot of anguish and suffering.
No. But I think that people should be able to decide when they want to end their lives if it is because of pain that won’t get any better, a terminal illness that causes pain etc. while they have all of their cognitive functions.
But we should put guardrails around if the reason for assisted suicide is not pressure from relatives, depression, etc.
I would argue that banning it is not an “easy solution” but in fact the hardest solution.
Nobody's saying that anyone should be encouraged to die. That is an evil thing. But that does not mean that people should not be permitted to choose to die vs suffer.
Right now, the political party in power openly wants undesirables, especially homeless people, to simply drop dead and stop bothering everyone else.
The relevant word during our fascist rise is schadenfreude. People not only want to see them drop dead for having the audacity to be dirty and unhoused - they want to see them suffer, hard, the entire time.
You gotta find a way to stop making the inflicting of pain on others pleasurable.
As I mentioned in a another comment, framing it as "how one is remembered" is leading to pointless tangents in this thread.
The important point is this: are you causing emotional, psychological, physical distress in the real world to those you care about when you have this disease? Yes or no. That's what I care about. Whether they are able to remember me well despite that, or poorly because of that should be completely secondary.
That’s irrelevant here. What is relevant is that we have a contempt for human life and a lack of charity. The teacher was not at fault for his condition. We should learn magnanimity.
Sure, we can think about how the burdens of caring for our family can be lessened as they age, or how we may help reduce that burden for our family, but family does have the duty to care for its members, and to place such considerations above the intrinsic value of human life is very sad indeed.
This is not contempt for human life. It is a recognition that sometimes as the body deteriorates that the quality of life becomes negative.
I watched both of my parents deteriorate in the end. The morphine blotted out my father's ability to form long term memory, if it wasn't in front of him things were like they had been before so much morphine was needed. There can be no value in such "life".
As far as I'm concerned not allowing people to end the suffering is a form of sadism.
I suspect this thread will go like many have in the past: there are two camps. The first has never seen a bad death and has a lot of opposition to people choosing to end their life. The second has seen a bad death and a lot of people would choose suicide before reaching that point. If it is a contempt for human life that means people have contempt for their own life and that doesn't make much sense. I can look at myself: I have been dealt a presumably genetic killer, I saw what it did to my mother and I will not allow that to happen to me. Do I have contempt for my own life because I expect the end to be suicide?
> The teacher was not at fault for his condition. We should learn magnanimity.
This is equally true of conditions like paranoid schizophrenia or psychopathy. Sometimes a person is just born with wiring that makes you dangerous to others. Does this mean that everyone around them must have the magnanimity and charity to them attacking people at random?
What does protecting life look like when one is literally losing everything about themselves that they value?
idk man whether the people I love hate me matters to me...
The parent described someone who went above and beyond the norm of other members in his community in his constant positive interaction with his neighbors, collegues, and former students. It is highly likely this kind of person would give a considerable shit if he knew he would become a nightmare for the same community.
There may be others reading in the thread who also can relate to the personality of the teacher and may care about their affect on others when they are "not themselves".