Rick and Morty did it. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_qvy82U4RE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_qvy82U4RE</a><p>Rick and Morty screw up the universe they're in, so they just hope sideways to a universe where their dopplegangers died seconds ago. They bury their bodies in the yard and take their place in that universe. The graves are still there in the backyard with rotting corpses in them. So, to Summer, it seems like Morty belongs there, but Morty knows that the original version of him died and he's a transplant from a parallel universe. But, the universes are almost entirely identical, so it's almost like being in his original universe.<p>The secret is not to think about it too much.<p>My favorite theory regarding Rick and Morty is that each episode doesn't necessarily follow the "same" characters. If there are an infinite number of Ricks and Mortys, in an infinite variety of situations, many of which are indistinguishable from each other, then it doesn't matter if you tune in to the "same" characters each time.<p>I think that's a practical answer to the philosophical navel gazing. Each thing that exists is its own thing, regardless of how similar it might be to another thing. The universe is infinite so just deal with as much of it as you can manage and don't worry about the rest.
It gets a trifle harder when you stop asking "what is consciousness" as the mentioned articles were driving at and start asking "what am <i>I</i>?"