What’s Death? Why Should We Understand the Meaning of Non-existence?

When we die, is it all over—or does life somehow keep going?

Have you ever thought about it?

Like, what actually happens to people after they die? It’s one of those questions everyone asks themselves at least once.

• Some people believe that death is just the beginning, and real life starts after we die!
• Others think death is the end of everything, that dying means becoming nothing, completely gone!
  (Honestly, this way of thinking kind of reduces the value of life to just this short time on Earth—and usually pushes people into a purely naturalistic mindset.)

So, the big question is: who’s actually right?
Why and how do people end up believing in one of these two completely opposite ideas?
And how is it that the first group straight-up refuses to see death as “the end”?

You know, a lot of times our minds get stuck in complicated thoughts and miss the simple stuff. A perfect example is the meaning of non-existence and “non-being.” Non-existence is basically a label we give to the state of not being. Put simply: nonexistence is just… not existing!

And something that doesn’t exist cannot exist—because if it did exist, we wouldn’t call it non-existence anymore, we’d call it existence!

Now, let’s flip it around for a second: what if something called “nothingness” actually existed? Well, if there is such thing, then it exists—and that’s a contradiction. Something that exists cannot simultaneously not exist. It’s kind of like saying it’s day and night at the same time—which is impossible.

If we really get this, we’ll understand why the idea that “God created everything from nothing” is actually a misunderstanding. Why? Because, as we said, nothing can’t bring something into existence! Existence and nonexistence, being and non-being, are completely opposite things— like on/off, full/empty. They cancel each other out, so they can’t exist together.

Can something really turn into nothing? Or can something come out of nothing? 🤔

Something interesting happened to David that helped him find the answer to this question!

Where Did the Whole Idea of “Non-existence” Even Come From?

Have you ever thought about what death really is? Have you ever thought about what death really is? Some people believe that once we die, that’s it—nothing remains, and we just turn into “nothing.”

Now the question is: does non-existence really exist? Can our existence suddenly vanish and be destroyed?

So where did this word “non-existence” that we use all the time even come from? Why do we always get confused when we talk about non-existence?

The story goes way back—to the time when people first started treating zero like a number. Back in the old days, counting was only used for real things. For example, they’d say, “There are two apples on the tree” or “Five horses are coming.” But this counting had a missing piece: zero!

Because when all the apples were eaten or the horses sold, there was no number to represent the empty spot. That’s why mathematicians came up with zero—just as a symbol to mark an empty spot. And trouble started when people forgot that zero was just a symbol, not a real number. In reality, we don’t have a number for “nothing.” Zero only makes sense when it’s tied to something that used to exist but changed form or ownership. Like, my horses became my neighbor’s horses, or the apples got eaten. The horses and apples didn’t vanish into thin air—they just changed hands or form.

But over time, that symbol zero started being treated like a real number! People began thinking that zero means “nothing,” as if it had become something independent and real. Even today, many people still see zero as equal to “nothing” or “non-existence.”

In fact, true nothingness doesn’t exist at all!

We explain this fully in Inner Galaxy, so check out the video first, and then I’ll tell you the rest.

Why “Non-existence” Matters?

You might wonder—why is it even important to understand what “nothingness” really means? Remember how we said the way we look at the world shapes how we understand everything around us?

Well, “non-existence” is one of those key ideas: if we don’t get it right, we’ll misunderstand a lot of things in life.

For example, if we don’t understand non-existence, we can’t really explain cold—because cold is just the absence of heat. Same with darkness—it’s simply the absence of light.

But it doesn’t stop at these simple examples. If we define “nothingness” the wrong way, we can get confused about much bigger things—like our relationship with the universe, the meaning of death, the nature of God, and so much more.

“May God bless them… it’s over, they’re gone!”

You’ve probably heard people say this a lot.
But seriously—what does it even mean to say “it’s over and done”?

How Are Existence and Non-existence Connected?

Remember when we were kids and saw a magician pull a dove or a rabbit out of an empty hat? We were amazed, right? It seemed like something came from nothing! And even as kids, we somehow knew that nothing can truly come from nothing—that’s why it surprised us so much.

The moment we really need to understand nothingness is when we try to think about existence. Non-existence is basically the opposite of existence. If existence means being, then non-existence means complete non-being. So, the better we understand non-existence, the better we can understand existence. Existence is infinite and unlimited, and nothing can truly limit it.

Now that we have a clearer idea of existence and non-existence, we can better understand what death is—and why it’s impossible for us to just vanish or be destroyed after we die.

But where we go after death, and why it’s important to understand death, is something we’ll explore more later. Because until we know where we came from, where we’re going, and why we’re here, we can’t truly understand ourselves or prepare for the purpose we were created for.

Here’s a little bonus fact: another name for absolute, infinite existence is God. So in a way, we realize that nothing exists outside of God. Everything we see in the universe is basically a colorful reflection of God.

If this idea still feels a bit fuzzy, check out The Torch podcast below: