3 ms·
I'm not responding to the specific story in the article, but - Several of my grandparents had dementia of one sort or another. They clearly could still enjoy
by three14 16y ago
I'm not responding to the specific story in the article, but -
Several of my grandparents had dementia of one sort or another. They clearly could still enjoy life, but completely differently than when they had their faculties. I wonder, if you could have gotten the question through to them, if they would have felt their lives weren't worth living. It doesn't seem the same question to ask a 30-year-old, "would you like to keep living at age 80 with no short term memory?" and to ask an 80-year-old with no short term memory, "is your life worth living?"
- carbocation 16y agoThis is really insightful. There is actually a huge body of research that does exactly what you suggest, and it largely supports your implied conclusion: people prefer death in hypotheticals, and prefer life when the question is no longer hypothetical.
- dcx 16y agoI agree with the research, but that does sound oddly tautological. Of course the people sampled preferr life! You can't sample the ones who didn't... (One would hope that was controlled for though.)