Death does not exist in first-person mode: timeless oneness or continuity through time without a time gap as the only two modes of experience
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) March 10, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18944173 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that because a subject cannot experience its own non-existence, and given empirical findings on the neural construction of temporal experience, death cannot exist from the first-person perspective. The author presents this as a strong conclusion following from a simple logical observation, complementing earlier work linking ego dissolution to reference-frame dissolution in relativity theory. |
Abstract
This paper arose from an ongoing inquiry into the nature of subjective experience, consciousness, and death. I approach these questions from the intersection of phenomenology, neuroscience, and logic. My earlier work (Vergucht, 2025) explored how ego dissolution in deep meditation and psychedelic states parallels reference-frame dissolution in relativity theory: when the default mode network disintegrates, the observer's fixed zero-point in spacetime dissolves, and what remains is a direct experience of non-local, timeless presence or the block universe. The present paper takes a different but complementary approach. Rather than starting from physics or neuroscience, it begins with a simple logical observation: a subject cannot experience its own non-existence. From this premise, combined with empirical findings on the neural construction of temporal experience, a surprisingly strong conclusion follows that death cannot exist from the first-person perspective.