Another interesting event

My daughter in laws grandmother died last week. She was 96 and had suffered with dementia for the last six years, not even recognising her daughter for the last six months. The day before she died, she suddenly recognised her daughter again and told her daughter with great excitement and joy that she had just seen her mother and father who had told her not to worry, everything was going to be OK.

I know all the obvious answers but I cant help thinking another odd event that gets me wondering, yet again.

I am skeptical. I have witnessed similar things happening but they also had explanations. Like obviously her daughter would have been feeling a loss after her passing and I bet this is when she remembered the event. Not to say she is a liar, but instead under the condition she is in she probably has remembered it differently than it actually occurred.

I don't even know the circumstances of your grandmother. It is far too easy to say but besides that why would she all of a sudden snap out of her dementia just to tell her daughter she saw her parents?

When you say that she finally did recognize her daughter, was it like, "Oh hey daughter guess what?" Or was she just talking to talk and her daughter happened to be there?

I don't take much from these stories because that is all they are. I was with my mother every day up until she died and nothing like this happened. She wasn't even an atheist so I assume she would have at least had some kind of experience like you shared, but there was none. I know because she was always trying to convince me, so if she ever had such an experience she would have shared it.

Sorry to hear your grandmother passing. She was lucky, she lived to a nice age. I can't say that it was a great age for her because of the medical reasons. Thanks for sharing it though.

Im not trying to convince you, that is not my intention, it, because I know the actors in this event, makes me consider this more than you.

My daughter in laws grandmother died last week. She was 96 and had suffered with dementia for the last six years, not even recognising her daughter for the last six months. The day before she died, she suddenly recognised her daughter again and told her daughter with great excitement and joy that she had just seen her mother and father who had told her not to worry, everything was going to be OK.

I know all the obvious answers but I cant help thinking another odd event that gets me wondering, yet again.

What are you wondering about? Do you really take the dying words of someone with dementia seriously?

Best case scenario: Even if we assume that the story is not simply made up, and even if we assume that the grandmother was speaking coherently on that day, and even if we assume that the grandmother was not making it up to reassure her granddaughter, we still have the visions of her parents being likely the result of dementia. So, the best case scenario is that it is no evidence of anything real at all. In the worst case scenario, someone is lying. Given that we have no particular evidence one way or the other, I am willing to give everyone involved the benefit of the doubt, and say that it is simply no evidence of anything real at all.

I told you initially that I had thought about all the arguments that could be considered. She had not recognised anyone before not even her daughter who she then confided in, at the end. She never ever told her daughter anything of this nature before.

I'm not expecting you to accept it but your brisk discounting of a personal experiences is exactly the reaction I expected, you did not disappoint me. The closer you are to these experiences and knowing the details, is always little more difficult to discount.

Pyrrho, I understand where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree. What you described may be the best case scenario, if we only acknowledge possibilities that fit into modern, Western, scientific paradigms.

The closer one is to a situation, the more likely it is that emotions will interfere with clear thinking.

Off topic, but it always gets me when people talk like this to...dismiss something for lack of a better word.

Modern--what would people in older societies have thought? A wide variety of things, many of which you would dismiss
Western--Not sure what you mean, since many eastern religions don't have a heaven where one would meet their parents.
Scientific--science allows for possibilities, it just demands support. And if you don't mind not having support, why do you pick a certain unsupported explanation over another?

It's especially the inclusion of Western that gets me. The implied non-scientific explanation is very, very Western. I've often gotten the feeling that people are just stringing these words together.

... I (we?) simply haven't accepted your concrete dismissal/explanation. While you could well be right, and I'm willing to accept that possibility, I'm not so quick to deny all other possibilities.
...

It is funny that you respond that way. I never said that this proves there is no afterlife; I said, So, the best case scenario is that it is no evidence of anything real at all. Saying that something is no evidence in favor of a particular position is not the same as saying that the position is false. You are being very careless in your reading of the posts with which you express disagreement.

Of course, if there is no better argument in favor of an afterlife, then there is no reason to believe in an afterlife at all.

You appear intent on fighting your corner rather than accepting others may have a personal experience that goes beyond your logical reasoning.

No one is putting forward the idea that others should accept this as evidence or even to consider it.

The point i was attempting to make was that certain experiences in life are very hard to dismiss, for those who experience them.

The individual has to ponder on them not you.

Have you never had an experience that has affected you but you were not able to convey to others the significance of it, in words? I retold this story as best I could about someone else's experience, not mine. I only defended the story because the story was questioned not the question it posed. Too many hardened sceptics find it necessary to attack anything that even approaches their hard and fast rules. Chill.

Whatever your motives, the public ought not be deluded by the story.

That's a bit rough, don't you think? It's a personal a story told on a philosophy forum... I highly doubt the public is going to suffer. Besides, if the story is true, I don't see how the story itself could delude the public.

Pyrrho;141569 wrote:

Whatever your motives, the public ought not be deluded by the story.

That's a bit rough, don't you think? It's a personal a story told on a philosophy forum... I highly doubt the public is going to suffer. Besides, if the story is true, I don't see how the story itself could delude the public. And in my opinion, the simple confession of one forum member that a life experience makes him stop and think should pose no imminent threat to anyone either.

No, it is not a bit rough. If someone publicly proclaims something, then that person has no right to expect the public to not react to it. Complaining about it afterwards is a mistake. If one does not want a public reaction, one is a fool to publicly proclaim something. In this case, judging from the various subsequent posts, the idea is evidently to put forth something as if it were evidence for something when it is not evidence of that something. If one cannot handle public criticism, one ought not publicly profess one's ideas.

And, in case you have not been paying attention, I have NEVER said that the story is not true. Reread my previous posts in this thread if you doubt that. It is just that the story, even if true, does not provide evidence of an afterlife or any other unusual sort of thing. And that is what is getting some people upset!

As for it being a "personal story", once one proclaims it publicly, it is no longer a purely personal matter. I did not cause him or her to publicly proclaim the story, so I cannot be blamed for that. And as this is a philosophical forum, don't you think that a philosophical analysis of the story is appropriate? Or do you think this is not really a philosophical forum, so that philosophical analyses of ideas presented here is out of place?