Discussion 🕳️ Where does everything we are go, when we fall into nothingness?

[TheVanishingPoint]

When someone shoots themselves in the head — or dies in any sudden, irreversible way — what really happens to what defined them?

I'm not talking about the body. That, we know: it decays, swells, decomposes, returns to the cycle of matter.
But the entire lived self — the unrepeatable collection of memories, emotions, images, traumas, first times, interrupted dreams...
everything that existed only in that mind — where does that go?

Can it truly vanish in an instant, like a candle snuffed out by wind?
Can the memory of a memory, of an embrace, disappear forever, leaving no trace, no witness?
Can the last thought ever formed dissolve into the void, with no one left to hear it?

Consciousness seems to want to imagine its own end, but that very act is already a neurological error:
you cannot imagine absence,
you cannot conceive of nothingness from within thought.
And yet death — real death — is precisely that: not being there to notice.

There is no "after".
There is no "witness to one's own annihilation".

So I ask:
Is everything we are truly written only in the fleeting moment we exist?
And if we disappear in silence, with no one to remember us,
is it as if we never existed at all?

Share your thoughts. Even a few words.
Maybe no one has the answer, but each of us bears a crack through which this question slips in.

 

[JoaoBye]

Eternal nothingness yes. Is what everyone has in stote eventually

 

[locked*n*loaded]

A person's "collection of memories, emotions, images, traumas, first times, interrupted dreams...
everything that existed only in that mind" is just a complex orchestration of various chemicals, electrical impulses, signaling, etc. You might want to read these two articles. When you die, all of what you mentioned is gone, since it is physiologically created.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-molecules-that-make-memory/7765.article

https://www.sciencenewstoday.org/the-hidden-force-behind-every-emotion

 

[Forever Sleep]

For those of us who outlive loved ones, we desperately try to keep something of them alive by trying to remember and memorialise them. I think maybe most of the sadness around my own death is that my memories of the people already lost will die too. Fairly soon, there will be no one that remembers them at all. So- they effectively die all over again. That used to really trouble me.

I suppose now though, having lived many decades without some of my loved ones, the bitter reality of it is- my memories of them do nothing to bring them back. They can only be bitterswest thoughts. So, to some extent, their 'use' has diminished for me. They mostly just hurt. It will be nice to just get rid of all that hurt ultimately.

As for what remains of us. That will depend on the person and how much interest others have in them. I suppose now, many people will have left a legacy of social media posts depicting their life in various amounts of detail. That could potentially always be there if someone happened to be interested enough to find it.

It's an odd thought though. Our emotions and perspective on life are all we have really. They are so central to our lived experience. Our pain similary is very real to us. Yet, it seems like it can indeed, all be gone in the blink of an eye.

I remember visiting my Grandma in the hospital. One morning, I got there a little late and, she had just died. It was expected but, still massively upsetting. We went to see her and then sat on a bench in the gardens. I looked at the ground, sobbing and, there were all these ants scurrying about. It just struck me that this is how life is. Every moment, something catastrophic is probably happening to some poor soul while the rest of the world is oblivious and goes on about its business not really caring- why would it?

I suppose we want there to be something more because we want justification for having gone through pain (and joy of course.)

Spoiler Alert! In the 2009 film: 'Moon', I get so upset when he find out he's a clone. I think in a way, it's a similar feeling surrounding this. There is just something so awful to think that all of the loneliness he felt. All of his emotions were based on a lie. Maybe it's not quite the same. We may feel more confident that our lives are real at least but, when everything ends, I think we can feel bitter about the suffering and, not being able to hold on or pass on the joy that effectively. I suppose we start to wonder- what was it all for? Was it worth it? I think people start to regret a lot when they know they're reaching the end.

I suppose parts of us could still exist but I think it largely depends on belief. I don't see much reason or evidence that we do exist beyond death.

 

[Tired_birth_1967]

Honestly, I've never thought about it. I just wish I could just not exist anymore. For all the concrete things we know about after we die, that's what it will be like. In fact, that comforts me. I don't want to experience any other life. If I could have chosen, I wouldn't be here. The experiences I've had, even though they've been good, have never made me think that life has any validity. For me, we're just driven by instincts, just like bacteria, ants, etc. We've just been unlucky enough to have our brains evolved to the point where we're aware of life, death, etc.

 

[Kali_Yuga13]

I don't know. I think there are more subtle energy bodies that may surpass material death but even those may dissolve. Buddhists and maybe Egyptians thought the 'soul' can take 30 or 40 days to fully dissipate.

With that said, I was in coma for 4 hours once and have also had surgeries with anesthesia and it was lights out complete non-existence until consciousness was regained.