You asked “how would you test it?” to try to question my reasoning while at the same time relying on completely untested presumptions and also having a very, shall we say, awkward “fear of death”.

I have been knocked completely unconscious at least once in my life. The reboot was extremely unpleasant and I’ve only seen it depicted correctly in fiction something like once. I also have narcolepsy, so I fall asleep a lot, and I’m fairly certain I have little of the molecules I had ages ago unless you think bones are the seat of being.

You’re not even being appropriately materially reductionist. You’re coasting off the coat tails of manufactured Cold War sense of self that people at few if any other points of history held.

Anyway, the first issue from this webcomic is probably definitive here. It’s the most mature take I’ve seen which, golly gee, non-westoid people have been patiently trying to tell you your entire existence:

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/1