All The Ghosts You Will Be

Imagine the sheer scale of humanity: billions of tiny specks, each a person. Yet, most of us will remain strangers, and eventually, we will be forgotten. This journey explores the different "ghosts" we leave behind, the subtle echoes of our existence that persist long after we are gone.

The Vastness of Human Existence

A 5lb bag of flour holds about 2.7 billion individual specks. If each were a person, just three bags could represent everyone alive on Earth today – 8.1 billion tiny things. You could pinpoint any single person with just 33 yes or no questions.

Every year, many people pass away, but twice as many are born. In total, about 117 billion people have ever lived. Yet, out of all those billions, you will only ever meet a tiny fraction. We are strangers to our own species. This leads us to consider how we are remembered, or perhaps, how we are forgotten.

Your Lingering Traces

Even after we are gone, parts of us remain. These are what we can call our "ghosts."

• Your Solar Corona: Like the sun's faint outer atmosphere, your "solar corona" consists of memories, emails, texts, or even your appearance in a stranger's photo. These traces shine while you're alive and can continue long after.
• Your Nominal Ghost: Your name represents you. The oldest written name we know is Kushim, from a 5,000-year-old tablet. Names can last, but eventually fade. You die twice: once when your heart stops, and again when your name is spoken for the last time.
• Your Likeness Ghost: Images of what you look like. Gudea, an ancient Sumerian ruler, is one of the earliest known individuals whose likeness we recognise, thanks to 27 realistic statues from 4,000 years ago.
• Your Genetic Ghost: Your unique genetic variation carried by descendants. Your unique code doesn't stick around long; your great-great-great-great-grandchildren will be no more genetically similar to you than to any stranger.
• Your Fossil Ghost: Becoming a fossil is incredibly rare, less than 0.1% of a species. To increase your chances, you'd need rapid, deep burial without a coffin, under the seafloor of still, low-oxygen water. Even then, Earth's geology can wear you away.
• Your Ripple Ghost: The diffused effect of all your actions. A tree you planted might provide shade a century from now, enjoyed by someone who never knew you. Your existence leaves an irreversible mark on the universe.

The Digital Footprint

In today's world, our ghosts are becoming more numerous and persistent. The "Death Clock," for instance, counts down your approximate remaining seconds of life and never forgets. This constant documentation is everywhere.

Consider the interactive globe showing the most famous person born in every location, based on Wikipedia data. About a quarter teaspoon of everyone alive right now is mentioned on Wikipedia. This digital presence can sometimes override physical truth, as seen with the example of the video's presenter being listed as born in Stillwell, Kansas, despite being born elsewhere. What's more important: truth or a digital lie that prolongs your "nominal ghost"?

The concept of "documentality" describes how much of our daily lives happen as documentation. Nearly every click, step, and conversation is vulnerable to being recorded or "pre-remembered" as a high-fidelity, timestamped artifact. This means there are often more things you've said than you could say, more ways things have been than ways they could be.

A striking example is the relationship between Michelle Carter and Conrad Roy. Their entire relationship unfolded through thousands of text messages. These messages are the whole story, an entire human relationship preserved as undying documents online. We constantly fill this vast ocean of documentation, turning more of what we do and see into ghosts, not just to remember, but to experience. When we watch events through our phones, we are fully in the moment, but that moment is increasingly mediated by our digital selves. We are becoming ghosts, living as accounts, likes, posts, and views.

The Human Drive for More

This constant digital presence brings a new kind of anxiety. Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, discussed the "information action ratio." How often does something you see online actually change your plans or provide real insight? When everything persists, relevance can disappear. The endless scroll of news, humour, and family updates isn't just irrelevant; it's a ghost that can pass right through you. You can stare for an hour and remember nothing.

We do this not because it feels good, but because our minds crave being unsettled. A never-ending stream of decontextualised content isn't unnatural; it's the niche we evolved to thrive in. Our brains evolved to seek what's next, to cross boundaries like the Wallace Line, not out of necessity, but because of the unknown beyond. We have "autoplay" on in our minds.

Humans are driven by "unsettledness," by not knowing what's going to happen next. Just as long necks were selected in giraffes for high leaves, imagination was selected in humans for "eating possibilities." As early humans faced climatic changes, they relied on resolution – picturing and manipulating the world in their minds. This mental "fire" has allowed us to make the whole world our home.

While binge-watching TV or scrolling social media might seem different from crossing the Bering Strait, they both offer that same unsettling, unresolved feeling. Each swipe brings something new. The internet provides pushes and pulls that spin us around without moving us anywhere. We are not amusing ourselves to death; we are amusing ourselves to life, a longer, perhaps scarier, life.

Key Takeaways

• Our existence leaves behind various "ghosts" – from personal memories and names to genetic traces and digital footprints – each with its own lifespan.
• The digital age is rapidly increasing the permanence and accessibility of our personal "documentation," transforming how we experience and remember life.
• Humans are inherently driven by a desire for the unknown and "unsettledness," a trait that now finds expression in our constant engagement with digital content.