This was a very interesting read. Great questions.
But I believe you are mystifying things a bit.
You speak about yourself experiencing the universe from a particular perspective and personality.
The thing is that you are that particular perspective and that particular personality.
I think this is the cause of your mystification - a "self" beyond the personality and the perspective.
why this body? why this wonderful set of circumstances? so many of my fellow human beings suffer so greatly, why am I who I am and why did the universe wait so long to create me and would I have never known this universe if it weren't for fate that brought my mom and dad together to have sex at the particular instant in time that put the correct sperm in contact with that certain egg that ultimately produced me?
In the same manner, you ask why is your transcendental self the personality which you speak of. In other words you are asking "Why am I
I. If you were a different
I, you would still be an
I. So if you're conscious of yourself, you'll always be an
I
I believe the correct question to ask is "why am I?"and you yourself have responded to this question: "my mom and dad together to have sex at the particular instant in time that put the correct sperm in contact with that certain egg that ultimately produced me"
And, just what is it that makes up this "soul" of mine (or if you don't like the word "soul", this "self" of mine)? Is it the atoms themselves? Well, I'm adding new atoms every day and getting rid of old ones. If I have a heart transplanted to replace my defective original, there goes some more old wore out atoms and here comes some new. Over time, I could have every atom replaced in my body and brain, and I'll bet as long as I have my memories and brain signals intact, I will still have my old "self".
You are adding and getting rid of atoms that lie in your body; not in your brain (which is you; the body is your "spaceship"). In your brain (there is no way to use another formulation) you only get rid of atoms (dead brain cells), you do not acquire (if we were able to acquire more brain cells as we live, we'd grow smarter and smarter, I presume).
That's a very solid reason why you remain the same throughout your life.
If you replace all your atoms, you'll get a being that's exactly like you, but it is missing one important thing: it's not built out of the same stuff as you are/were (i.e. you can't say that perfect twins are the same exact person...).
So, is it my thought stream that makes up my "self"? I'm creating new thoughts everyday and forgetting old stuff all the time. Am I losing myself? Am I dying every instant and being reborn every instant with a new soul? Am I the same "soul" or "self" that I was 20 years ago? Is an Alzheimer's sufferer no longer the same "self" or have the same "soul"?
There are some basic things about yourself that you will never forget (those things are what you are made of; they compose you): your age, your desires, they way you feel in certain situations, etc.).
Besides this, the brain constantly produces and forgets thoughts.
(i.e. many operating systems can work with the same BIOS; if you've changed the OS, that doesn't mean you've changed the whole computer).
The Alzheimer's sufferer will still be the same, even though he forgets everything, because he'll still act the same, and he still has the same body.
Change the way one acts, change his body, and you have a new person.
A complete replacement of every atom in your body with fresh new atoms assembled in the exact fashion as your old body, won't change a thing as far as your "identity" or "self awareness" or "soul" is concerned.
That's because a new brain configured in the exact way as another will work as the same (will produce the same electrons in the same pattern, etc).
What if all the atoms that make you vanished from the universe for a thousandth of a second but came back. Did you notice it? What if they vanished for a hundred years, and then reappeared exactly as you left this universe, only a hundred years later? What happened to your soul while the universe cranked on for that century? It disappeared along with the piece of universe that made it up.
That depends on where my atoms have vanished. If they vanished out of existence, I believe I couldn't have noticed it. But if they vanished into another, say, reality, then I could have probably noticed it.
But of course, I can find out that I have vanished somewhere, because when I return things will be different.
What if (whatever mad scientist who is performing these experiements) goofed, and made two copies of you when you returned? This is the clone experiment I spoke of before, so he takes half of the original atoms from your body and makes a copy of the other half to make one of your selfs, and the other half of the atoms from your orignal body and a copy of the other half to make the other copy of your selfs. Neither is the original, but both are exact copies, displaced by a a couple of feet and less than a second in time, there are now two of you. Both claim to be the original because there was only a momentary blip when they lost conciousness and regained it. Both recall the same childhood. Both claim their memory to be real life experience, how could both be right? Both are right. Did they each get a brand new "soul" or "self" or whatever, at the moment of duplication? While the true original has "died"? No, I don't think so. I think that this demonstrates that we are all made of the same stuff
It's hard for me to explain, but this matter is fairly simple.
Suppose you are in a crowd of people. Would it be hard for you to notice who is yourself? Is this question even worth asking?
Thus, we have two identical people. One of them is you. How can you not notice who is you? Considering that (lol) you are you.
Also, the original being is the one that has the older atoms; it's not very hard to determine which are the new atoms and which are the old ones.
No self memory remains, no soul continues, but the matrix of consciousness within the universe continues, it all began as one, it all ends as one.
You are unifying living minds into this "matrix of consciousness".
I believe that we both agree with the fact that if you unite two consciousnesses (minds), you'll get one, greater consciousness and not two that are unified [it's like water: add more water and you'll get more water, not two water(s)].
But the problem is that we cannot unite. We are separated by our bodies. I can never know what you think, what you feel, whether you see the same colors as I do or hear the same sounds.
We cannot unify, thus, there's no reason to think about this matrix of consciousness.
