A perfect suicide?

Question

Is it possible to not only kill you body but also erase your memory from the world? So that after your death no one ever knows you existed?
Johan a character of the manga "Monster" tried to do that but I wonder if is it possible to do it in real life.

Thanks,

Max.

Answer 1

It has happened on a number of occasions. But it usually takes longer than you think.

One example can be found in the Roman Empire. Sometimes when they had a PARTICULARLY bad emperor, his successor would order his predecessor to be ERASED. All statues of the man were destroyed, his name was stricken from all records, and people were forbidden to speak his name or anything about him.

And although there were undoubtedly people still alive who had memory, the process has worked pretty well for US... there are some Roman Emperors about whom we know almost literally nothing.

That points out another way of doing it - just not to be famous in the first place. What was the name of the guy who made Caesar's sandals? We're not likely to even know. An obscure figure completely past any memory or record.

This latter process can happen even before a person is dead, to some extent. I recall a recent case where a person bought a house and found a body in it. The previous occupant had died and nobody even remembered he was alive in the first place. Ouch.

Answer 2

Being forgetten is fairly easy. Even when a loved one dies, eventually life returns to normal and that person is forgotten. Eliminating all traces of a person becomes very difficult in the electronic age (not surprising that we try to leave our mark in some way) where many things that we do daily leave an trail of where we've been.

I know that many people died today. I don't know any of them personally, so in that sense they are forgotten or not even known. In some countries, it is easier than others.

Unless the person planned to kill all those whose lives they touched, a memory will live on whether the person interested in dying likes it or not.

Answer 3

I think that would be quite impossible, unless u've lived your whole life in a bubble and never made contact with humans!
But somebody somehow will remember you, somebody you met on the street once, or talked to on the phone, this does not mean they love you, but some things can never be erased from your memory, or someone else's.
You will eventually be remembered!

Answer 4

Sure, easy, you simply kill off everyone who ever knew you, everyone who knew someone who knew you, everybody who knew .... well, you get the idea. So the only way I can think of to accomplish that is to destroy all life (inclluding so-called animals). The only problem with that scenario as postulated by you is that there would not be anyone around to never have known you existed.

Answer 5

Interesting...I don't know if that would be possible. As long as one, single person has a memory of you, any person at all. someone who saw you walk down the street....someone you bumped into trying to exit the mall...anyone at all, then you've left a memory.

Answer 6

Not everybody has a circle of social contacts, there are plenty of forgotten people who are still alive today and nobody knows they ever existed.

Answer 7

I doubt it.

The bloody tax man always seems to catch up with me wherever I go and I'm sure simply dying wouldn't shake him off.

Answer 8

There is always at least one person who knows that you once existed.

Answer 9

I dont know. Why would you want to kill yourself? Theres at least 15 people who love you in this world and would do anything for you. I dont think they would forget you. I hope you dont die. Please! =[