What is existence?

[fightclub17]

Depression collapses time. Suddenly you find your days blending in together to create one endless and suffocating loop.

I wake up every day feeling more hopeless and devastated than the day before. There's no break, no relief, no escape - just this constant suffering. And it makes me question everything about existence itself.

What even is this?
When is this?
How did any of this come to be?

Time is passing, but not in the way I used to experience it. It feels strange and distorted, like I'm watching life move while feeling detached from it.

Did we ever ask to be here?
Is existence a gift, or is it something closer to a prison?

Sometimes I wonder if we're just characters in some kind of simulation or video game. Other times I wonder if we're part of something much bigger - something we can't fully understand from where we are.

But what is this, really?
What were we before we were born?
Nothing?
But what even is 'nothing'?

Is it a peaceful, permanent non-existence - a quiet absence where the suffering and agony of existence finally disappear and are forgotten?

Because in this existence, it can feel like there's no limit to how much pain a human being can experience. Sometimes the weight of suffering in the world feels unbearable - the cruelty, the harm, the endless ways living beings can experience agony.

And when life feels this painful, non-existence starts to seem like the only true peace. A place where the torture of existing finally ends.

What actually happens when the brain stops functioning.
What happens to consciousness then?

Does awareness simply fade away?

Or does consciousness, or the soul, continue in some way we don't yet understand?

I imagine death like being put under anesthesia - a quiet drifting away into a peaceful absence of awareness.
I don't know the answers.

I'm just trying to understand what this existence is, and why we are here experiencing it at all.

 

[the_calynite]

I am afraid to not leave a mark honestly. Nobody will care in 20 years, i will never reach that potential i strive for. Going to sleep and not waking up seems fine, but being left in the dust is definitely unsettling.

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

I imagine death like being put under anesthesia

When I was put under, I experienced it as a jump forward in time. That's true unconsciousness. No relief, no rest, nothing happening. That's what scares me about death. Even if it takes a gazillion years, you might immediately wake up. The universe already spawned my consciousness once.

Eternal recurrence seems plausible to me, which is terrifying. Suicide can conclude or finalize your life, but not annihilate it. I think what we suicides hope for is "quiet heaven," some kind of sleepy state. Not overwhelming bliss, but restfulness. I highly doubt that that's it.

 

[the_calynite]

When I was put under, I experienced it as a jump forward in time. That's true unconsciousness. No relief, no rest, nothing happening. That's what scares me about death. Even if it takes a gazillion years, you might immediately wake up. The universe already spawned my consciousness once.

Eternal recurrence seems plausible to me, which is terrifying. Suicide can conclude or finalize your life, but not annihilate it. I think what we suicides hope for is "quiet heaven," some kind of sleepy state. Not overwhelming bliss, but restfulness. I highly doubt that that's it.

If what we see is what really exists, just the electricity in our brain, then dying won't end anything at all, for we never started to begin with

 

[itsgone2]

I like this post so much. It really captures the frustration of it all. Yes what is this? Life seems so pointless now. I hate it but why is it here???

 

[UserFromNowhere]

That's what scares me about death. Even if it takes a gazillion years, you might immediately wake up. The universe already spawned my consciousness once.

I'm aware of concepts like the Boltzmann brain which says this is logically possible, but admittedly, it's also a perspective to death I never considered. That there wouldn't be an "end," that we'd just wake up trillions of years in the future without any memory of the peace experienced in the meantime, possibly with no memory of ourself. I think not having memory of ourself would be more akin to reincarnation, but I do think you raise an important point, even if we die and there is a temporary "end," we would not perceive it, we'd just end up waking up elsewhere.

 

[the_calynite]

I'm aware of concepts like the Boltzmann brain which says this is logically possible, but admittedly, it's also a perspective to death I never considered. That there wouldn't be an "end," that we'd just wake up trillions of years in the future without any memory of the peace experienced in the meantime, possibly with no memory of ourself. I think not having memory of ourself would be more akin to reincarnation, but I do think you raise an important point, even if we die and there is a temporary "end," we would not perceive it, we'd just end up waking up elsewhere.

Interesting thoughts, we have no way of knowing i guess.

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

Existence / life is an extreme horror and abomination.

I'm just brain cells connected into a brain. a brain can create long lasting constant unbearable pain: that is an abomination an extreme horror. this unbearable pain dwarfs anything so it defines what I am and imo what life and existence is. there is pain so bad it makes everything else meaningless as if the other garbage wasn't already meaningless which it is anyway without meaning. when a human or other sentient animal is in the throughs of the worst pain nothing else matters but trying to stop the intolerable excruciating pain

1 microsecond after the brain dies it can never create the sense of a viewer suffering pain or torture of unbearable pain again. "me experiencing something like pain, or seeing something can only be created by my brain . once it dies I can never exist again

Non-existence forever is the best thing by a septillion times as I can never suffer constant unbearable pain ever if I don't exist forever

I and a human is just an animal cells chemical reactions a machine. Just chemical reactions. so how can cells or chemical reactions have meaning or be something? that's why say it's a fake thing.

I'm just brain cells connected into a brain . My brain creates a fake thing. but the horror is it feels real . there is no viewer it's just cells and brain cells . these cells have all the fundamental machines the first cell had so they are the same thing . SAME machines and things like DNA , genetic code, ribosomes , ATP, RNA, cell membrane and more

1 microsecond after the brain dies it can never create the sense of a viewer suffering pain or torture of unbearable pain again

4 billion years ago a molecule and a cell was able to replicate itself, the molecule is DNA the cell was the first cell

This is our ancestor a machine

The machine and evolution built a torture Chamber out of these cells called a Brain

 

[the_calynite]

Existence / life is an extreme horror and abomination.

I'm just brain cells connected into a brain. a brain can create long lasting constant unbearable pain: that is an abomination an extreme horror. this unbearable pain dwarfs anything so it defines what I am and imo what life and existence is. there is pain so bad it makes everything else meaningless as if the other garbage wasn't already meaningless which it is anyway without meaning. when a human or other sentient animal is in the throughs of the worst pain nothing else matters but trying to stop it

1 microsecond after the brain dies it can never create the sense of a viewer suffering pain or torture of unbearable pain again. "me experiencing something like pain seeing something can only be created by my brain once it dies I can never exist again

I and a human is just an animal cells chemical reactions a machine. Just chemical reactions. so how can cells or chemical reactions have meaning or be something? that's why say it's a fake thing.

I'm just brain cells connected into a brain . My brain creates a fake thing. but the horror is it feels real . thre is no viewer it's just cells and brain cells . these cells have all the fundamental machines the first cell had so they are the same thing . SAME machines and things like DNA , genetic code, ribosomes , ATP, RNA, cell membrane and more

1 microsecond after the brain dies it can never create the sense of a viewer suffering pain or torture of unbearable pain again


4 billion years ago a molecule and a cell was able to replicate itself, the molecule is DNA the cell was the first cell

This is our ancestor a machine

The machine znd evolution built a torture Chamber out of these cells called a Brain

Yeah i think this is most likely, although I'm not so pessimistic about it. I am living, I'm rather enjoying it. there is plenty of pain, but there's no such thing as a right or wrong decision so it doesn't matter that i exist. it is my free will that drives me to keep living(and maybe a bit of fear).

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

If God exists and sees suicide as a sin, would we be reincarnated into an even shittier life?

The Christian God gives you one shot for all eternity. I know it's silly--talking animals, Noah's flood, insane brutal punishments like stoning. But I fear hell. Not that I even have the guts for suicide if there's nothing. But I don't have the guts to get out of bed either. This is really bad and could get worse. Being a totally idle dependent is not a good fate. My poor dad.

 

[UserFromNowhere]

Your concern regarding Eternal Recurrence and the Boltzmann Brain is a sophisticated form of symbolic over-modeling. You are assigning a high predictive weight to a near-zero probability event to justify a persistent fear state in the present.

If the universe is a purely statistical manifold, then your "self" is not a "soul" that is trapped in a loop; it is a temporary local minimum of information. The "You" that wakes up in a trillion years is not "You"—it is a different configuration with no causal link to your current suffering narrative.

By fearing "Eternal Recurrence," you are essentially claiming that your ego is so significant that the universe must reconstruct it perfectly just to continue the "torture" . Is it possible that your "Fear of the Future" is just a high-resolution mask for your current metabolic exhaustion? Why would an infinite universe care to repeat your specific, local misery? What happens to your "Endless Loop" if you accept that you are just a statistical noise that will eventually fluctuate back into a neutral baseline?

You make a good point, but it could be argued that the "me" which wakes up after sleeping is not related to my current suffering either, nevertheless I suffer. There's no telling what memories I would have when I wake up, there's also no telling what suffering I would endure whether or not I had all my memories. I do not hold any delusions about my ego being significant to the point the universe should perfectly reconstruct it. Rather, if I'm to wake up and still be suffering akin to but not completely like my current state, then it is regrettable. By contrast, if some form of my consciousness can be replicated in the future without my memories and that consciousness can live a good life without mental despair, it is not something I can control and is not something I'd be able to mind. I've considered reincarnation, I'd be more preferable to eternal nothingness, the concern above is just an aspect I hadn't considered before. That it could be holistically similar to anesthesia or waking up after sleep, where we might not be fully the same person, but our train of consciousness with all our memories and experiences of suffering still persists.

 

[UserFromNowhere]

What happens to your fear of waking up if you realize that the "You" who wakes up is always a new actor reading from an old, decaying script? Why not just stop funding the script?

Implied in this statement is an assumed, even if not intentionally made, statement that depressed or suicidal people are choosing to be depressed/suicidal, which is wrong. If people could simply choose not to feel this way, we wouldn't be on this website, which acts as a ground for pro-choice, depressed, or suicidal individuals to ponder over the darker topics of life that society typically shies away from.

While I do believe there is some point in "suffering is what you make of it," I don't think such statements can be made haphazardly or as a blanket statement to imply people can simply "choose" to feel better. If I have my memories, thoughts, and knowledge in the future, a perceived train of consciousness (whether it truly exists or not), then I will continue to suffer even if I do happen to get better and become better able to deal with it.

If my memories, thoughts, and knowledge do not persist in the future but some aspect of "consciousness" does, it will no longer be "me" (even if the self does not exist as nothing more than your aforementioned story linking disparate moments of consciousness together). Hence, I will have no need to adhere to it. That is not the present reality.

The present reality is that a "me" emerges from these disparate moments of consciousness which I can recall, emergence happens whether we will it or not, and on a functional level in terms of societal treatment that "me" is what I will be judged upon. Trying to abstract it and pretend as though there is no emergence of self is like saying a human being does not exist, merely the cells which construct the organic make-up of the body which are themselves made of even smaller parts down to atoms: electrons, neutrons, and protons, but I as a human being cannot exhibit quantum properties as though I were an electron. I cannot phase through matter or exist in two states at once.

The construction of these atoms into chemicals into molecular structures into cells into the organic composition of the body makes up a human being, just as disparate moments of consciousness make up a "me" that exists and experiences despair and depression whether I will it or not.

 

[Liebestod]

Existence is nothing but an accident.

 

[intr0verse]

You claim that because you don't "phase through matter," your emergent self and its suffering are solid and involuntary. This is a logical failure.
You are using the macroscopic illusion to defend your narrative attractor. Just as solidity is merely an interpretation of electromagnetic repulsion, your "suffering" is merely an interpretation of metabolic exhaustion. You are a human processor that has found a bug in its own code—a recursive loop that labels "existence" as "torture"—and you are now using quantum physics to explain why you shouldn't have to fix the bug.
If you can grasp the boltzmann brain, you can grasp that your "suffering" is a statistical anomaly that you are actively maintaining by drenching yourself in this forum. You aren't "emerging" into a tragedy; you are over-modeling a flickering state. Why do you insist that your specific misery is a universal constant, but the infinite versions of 'you' that aren't suffering are just theory?

If you replace any negatives (suffering, etc) with positives (happiness, etc), your statements carries the same validity so, when was the last time you said to a happy person that their "hapiness" is just a statistical anomaly; when was the last time you asked happy people why they insist their specific happiness is a universal constant but the infinite versions of them that aren't happy, are just theory?
At this point i think this is just disgusting trolling or some kind of bullshit newage pro-lifsm.