L'Io nello spaziotempo

Can the same conscious subject persist after the death of the brain through which a particular life is experienced? This paper contrasts H₀, the general brain-production hypothesis according to which each individual conscious subject is entirely generated by their brain, with H₁, the hypothesis of numerical personal continuity across biological lives. Its empirical focus is on children who claim a deceased person’s life as their own, report biographical details, and receive external corroboration. In some cases, statements were recorded before the deceased person was identified; such records contradict H₀-retro, the specific explanation that matching statements were retrospectively constructed after identification. The author advances the stronger interpretive thesis that the combined first-person claims and verified statements constitute powerful evidence against the universal claim made by H₀ and favor H₁. A single genuine counterexample would suffice to falsify that universal claim, although establishing that a given case is such a counterexample requires assessing the original evidence. MIIS then offers a conceptual geometric account distinguishing a biological brain’s spacetime history (Bᵢ), a hypothetically persistent subject (S), and their proposed coupling (λᵢ). These are not measured physical quantities. The paper also sets out the independently formulated Vector of the Self: a ten-dimensional, normalized geometrical-introspective representation of the perceived distance between one’s present condition and self-recognized life goal. Any persistence of this orientation across lives, or capacity to choose a future incarnation, is discussed separately as an unverified extension.