Cessation of Existence: Difference between revisions

This is when you die, and you cease to exist. No afterlife. No feeling, no thought, no perception, no existence. Your existence -- everythingexistence—everything you ''were'' -- simply—simply disappears like a popped soap bubble.

The cessation of existence is not a lovely [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]] or a boiling molten [[Hell]]: you know nothing, you feel nothing, and you ''are'' nothing. If you cease to exist and are gone forever, you have no knowledge of anything, not even of your own death. In other words, permanent and total unconsciousness. And even that is a woefully inadequate comparison, since even the unconscious can still dream.

== Anime &and Manga ==

* In the ''[[Incarnations of Immortality]]'' series, people generally go to an afterlife, but which afterlife depends to some extent on what they believe; one incidental character is a militant atheist who believes that [[Cessation of Existence]] is what happens to everybody when they die, and although he's wrong about the "everybody", it is indeed what happens to ''him''.

* In a story by [[Stanislaw Lem]], a [[Ridiculously-Human Robots|Ridiculously Human Robot]] called Automateusz ends up stranded on a [[Deserted Island]], along with his artifical friend (called Wuch), a small, intelligent ball. After calculating that the odds of getting saved are next to nothing, Wuch advises Automateusz to commit suicide to avoid an inevitable and much more painful death, and brings up several arguments for the case that [[Cessation of Existence]] is actually the greatest thing that could happen to a person.

* In Vonda N. [[Mc Intyre]]McIntyre's ''[[The Exile Waiting]]'' a character learns that this is what happens after death, through being telepathically linked to someone at the time of their death.

* In ''[[The Skinjacker Trilogy]]'', cessation of existence normally does not occur - you're either living, in Everlost, or you've gone into the light - but a scar wraith can extinguish an Everlost soul by merely touching them. This is the fate of Squirrel in ''[[Everfound]]''.

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'', this doesn't appear to be the standard death experience (well, as far as we know; our only reliable witness of the afterlife died under ''very'' unusual circumstances), but it's what happens to Fred. When Illyria takes over her body, it completely devours her soul, quite explicitly ruling out any possibility that Fred could come [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]].

** Considering that Fred was meant to return in Season Six by her and Illyria splitting in two (had the show not been cancelled), this may not have actually have been what happened, and the person who claimed this may be wrong. In the ''After the Fall'' comics, it seemed as though Fred HAD''had'' returned, occasionally taking over the body inhabited by Illyria - however, it was later revealed that Illyria was faking it, as she apparently wanted Fred to be back.

* A later episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'' had Neelix discover, much to his horror, that there was nothing after death. However, he was ''clinically'' dead but successfully rescusitatedresuscitated with medical intervention; the question is whether or not that counts as "dead enough" that he ''should'' have seen the afterlife.

** When [[Great Gazoo|Q]] spent some (involuntary) time as a human in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]],'' he seemed particularly concerned about dying, convinced that he would simply wink out of existence. This and the above example suggest that either there is no afterlife in the [[Star Trek]] universe, or that the afterlife is so mysterious even the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|sufficiently advanced Q]] don't know about it.

* There was also another thing in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' universe that seems to negate the afterlife. In the original ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' episode "Return to Tomorrow", Sargon says "Thalassa and I must now also depart into oblivion" before he dies.

** "Departing into oblivion" wouldn't necessarily mean "ceasing to be,", though it ''could.'' It could just refer to leaving behind the known and entering the unknown.

*** This trope is actually subverted at several points throughout the series'various incarnations of ''Star Trek,''. the The most notable subversion is the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'' episode "Barge of the Dead", where B'Elanna is nearly killed in a shuttle accident (similar to how Neelix temporarily dies) and in her near -death experience, she learns that her mother is on the road to Klingon Hell, so she re-creates the conditions of the accident to go back to the "barge of the dead" and tries to get her mother into Klingon Heaven. She succeeds.

** Don't forget, though, that in ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|Star Trek IV the Voyage Home]]'' Spock makes it clear that ''something'' happened to him after he died, but it was something that only those with a "common frame of reference" could possibly discuss with each other. Both the wording and the implications make it unmistakable that we're not talking about [[Cessation of Existence]].

* As of the conclusion of Season 6, it's strongly implied (though not spelled out in so many words) that this is the fate of angels who die in ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]''. (Unless God, or presumably God, takes a personal interest and brings them [[Back Fromfrom the Dead]].)

{{quote| ''Imagine there's no Heaven<br />

''It's easy if you try<br />

''No hell below us<br />

''Above us only sky }}

{{quote| ''And in the ear of every anarchist<br />

''Who sleeps but doesn't dream,<br />

''We must sing, we must sing,<br />

''We must sing }}

{{quote| ''If your thoughts should turn to death<br />

''better stomp them out<br />

''like a cigarette }}

* While the majority of Christians believe that you go to either [[Heaven]], [[Hell]] or Purgatory (Protestants tend to believe in only Heaven and Hell), certain denominations such as the Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses use the scripture quoted above as proof that there is no Hell or afterlife. They believe that when you die, you cease to exist until you are [[Back Fromfrom the Dead|resurrected]] in The Second Coming of Christ (assuming you were one of the saved when you died) while those who were lost when they died come back to life in the Second Resurrection where they face probation for their sins; if they fail, they die again, but without hope of further resurrection. They argue that the idea of the permanent and immortal soul is Platonic, not Biblical, in origin.

* Naturalistic atheists and [[Useful Notes/Pantheism|pantheists]] usually ascribe to this. [[The Anti-Nihilist|Most don't have a problem with this either,]] especially if they previously belonged to a religion that believed in some kind of unpleasant afterlife.

** Then again, some do. That sort tends to make up the majority of the various [[Transhuman|Transhumanist]]ist movements.

** The Talmud does not handle the Sadducees exactly with silk gloves. The Pharisees and Sadducees were onat each others' throats, and the Pharisees eventually won. The Talmud was written by the descendants of Pharisees.

* If you kill a demon or devil on its home plane in ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'', they're gone for good. (See ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', below.)

** The fact that most cards that were "removed from play" most of time might not be truly removed is what prompted the terminology change to Exile. Many of the cards use the Exile zone as more or less a placeholder for when simply shoving it in the graveyard would be too powerful. For the brief time they are exiled however, most cards are assumed to have ceased to exist, at least in the current "reality". Some exceptions do exist though. Swords to Plowshares hint that the creature in question is given a farm job and has given up fighting.

* Ironically enough, this appears in the game ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]''. As in most [[Role -Playing Game|Role Playing Games]]s, the threat of death is ever present, even though in Wraith, you're already dead when the game starts. The unstated goal of Wraith is to move on from the Shadowlands, and there are two ways to do this (well, two basic ways... anyhow, moving on). The first is the ultimate enlightenment, Transcendence. This is where the ghost accepts its death and moves on. To what, who knows? Transcended ghosts aren't around to tell. That's why it's called moving on. The second way to move on is the titular Oblivion. Ignoring for the moment the fact that Oblivion is also a force of nature and essentially the big bad of the whole metaplot, for the sake of this explanation it is a phenomenon: a very rare form of death after death. When the ghost is damaged enough it goes into a manic/psychotic episode called a Harrowing, and if this happens bad/often enough, the soul obliviates and ceases to exist. And the horror of it all? Transcendence and Oblivion look ''exactly the same to the onlooker''.

* In the ''[[New World of Darkness]]'', it's somewhat implied that this is what the true Afterlife is -- thereis—there's no obvious difference between when a ghost "moves on" and when it's destroyed -- butdestroyed—but no-one's actually certain. The Underworld (where ghosts go if their anchors are destroyed but they still aren't ready to let go of existence) is somewhere between [[Hell]] and [[The Nothing After Death]], instead. Directly destroying a ghost ''definitely'' causes this, though.

{{quote| '''Rosencrantz''': Do you think death could be a boat?<br />

'''Guildenstern''': No. Death ... is not. You take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative, a state of not-being. You can't not-be on a boat.<br />

* Ending D of ''[[Nie RNieR]]'' is all about this. Having accepted to sacrifice himself to bring back Kaine from her Shade corruption, the price is for the main protagonist to be wiped from existence ''entirely'', even from everyone's memory. As a final testament to the permanence of this fate, ''[[Player Punch|your entire save file is deleted]]''.

* In ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' this is a major focus. When the Heartless "eat" a person, the convert that person into a heartless them self. Their Heart is eaten as food and the original person is usually lost forever. Sora escapes this at the end of KH 1.

{{quote| '''Axel:''' Let's meet again, in the next life.<br />

'''Roxas:''' Yeah; I'll be waiting.<br />

* ''[[Crysis]] 2'' had [[Magnificent Bastard|Jack Hargreave]] say he found the prospect of "simple oblivion" to be preferable to an actual afterlife after spending fifty years as a [[Brain In a Jar]].

{{quote| '''[[Our Angels Are Different|Ramael:]]''' When a human dies, it's like getting an eternal vacation. A dead angel is just dead.}}

* The ''[[The Fairly Oddparents]]'' had an episode where Timmy wished he was never born and was slated to be [[Ret-Gone|wiped from existence]]. Of course things go [[Status Quo Is God|back to normal in the end]] but, a bit of [[Fridge Horror]] ensues when it's mentioned other kids had chosen to go through with this (Although in this case, it's said that they're sent to another dimension).

* In the [[Series Finale]] of ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'' it's pointed out via extreme [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]] that anytimeany time a show ends everyone and everything in the universe it takes place in ceases to exist.

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