At this point I’m already departing radically from the standard materialist account of personhood, which would say that we can be vague about whether a few atoms are a part of you or not. The reason we can’t do that, is precisely the objectivity of your existence. If you are an objectively existing entity, I can’t at the same time say that you are an entity whose boundaries aren’t objectively defined.
I have some sympathy for the view that my-here-now qualia are determinant and objective. But I don’t see why that implies that there must be a determinant objective unique collection of particles that is experiencing the qualia. Why not say that there are various different boundaries that I could draw, but, no matter which of these boundaries I draw, the qualia being experienced by the contained system of particles would be the same? For example, adding or removing the table in front of me doesn’t change the qualia experienced by the system.
(Here I am supposing that I can map the relevant physical systems to qualia in the manner that I describe in this comment.)
I have some sympathy for the view that my-here-now qualia are determinant and objective. But I don’t see why that implies that there must be a determinant objective unique collection of particles that is experiencing the qualia. Why not say that there are various different boundaries that I could draw, but, no matter which of these boundaries I draw, the qualia being experienced by the contained system of particles would be the same? For example, adding or removing the table in front of me doesn’t change the qualia experienced by the system.
(Here I am supposing that I can map the relevant physical systems to qualia in the manner that I describe in this comment.)