Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 19:24:09 -0400 From: Eric Yost <103423.421-AT-CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: PLC: Generic equivalent George wrote that "All jesting (well maybe not _all all_) aside death is a matter of definition." And a strange definition at that. A few weeks ago, my father died holding my hand. Roughly 15 seconds before he died (judging relative to the attending nurse) I KNEW he was dead. Something that was there, now was gone. From my point of view it created the impression that something had fled. How to see beneath that metaphor! This KNOWLEDGE of a loved one's passing may merely be, by George's criteria, a more convoluted matter of definition. Maybe in the hours leading up to his death, I lapsed into a state of mind ruled by ultimate things. In other words, I may have been unconsciously anticipating his demise (through some sort of rehearsal mechanism of the mind) and would assign finality to any given moment. If he had died an hour earlier, I would have been disposed to mythologize that moment. It's a fancy analytic possibility but it's wrong. I know from direct experience: something was there one moment and gone the next. Whether it "fled" is moot, but it is gone. Regards, Eric Yost --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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