How "reincarnation" might work?

[Ben Davis]

Awareness is not a good enough criteria. For one thing awareness is combination of unbroken continuity and a little data. The data *is* important. Data can be recreated. 
But the unbroken continuity is not enough to define a person.

As an analogy, the combination of hardware, software & data define the person.

For example: You begin to change for some reason molecule by molecule into another person, say Mussolini, all the while maintaining your continuity. All the while your continuity is persevered and yet in the end… you are gone and there is only Mussolini. Continuity is simply not enough.

Erm, no... my continuity is not preserved as I'm no longer there as I've been replaced.

For another thing: sleep

Well, sleep doesn't interrupt my continuity as I'm still alive.
 

You don’t see out of your future self’s eyes (at present). You don’t think your past self-thoughts and yet they are considered the same person

But I will (unless I die of course), I did and I do. The identity results because they're emergent from my individual combination of hardware, software and data.

Actually with the same memories they would have no idea who had thought what.

That may be true but they would be completely aware that they're not each other and any new memories would be unique and divergent thus reinforcing the point that they're individuals.
 

Having separate consciousness’s doesn't *do* anything.

Erm... yes it does, it marks individuality.
 

The point of Science is that practical concerns are all. What we can see. What we can feel.
We define almost everything else (machines, books, resources) by what it does.

But not just by what it does but also by what it is. We can tell the difference between two different copies of the same book. We don't pretend they're the same entity simply because they do the same thing.

If one is replaced by a perfect copy, broken continuity is an invisible force that doesn't affect anything. It does nothing, so it is nothing. If it does something it only does so because it affects one’s form.

That makes no sense. If I've been replaced then my personal identity ceases to exist along with me. That's a pretty big 'something'! Remember that we're talking about reincarnation here where a basic requirement is that I continue after my death, not a copy, me, my individual awareness.

If you don’t care about it, it doesn't matter. Consider Captain Kirk “killing” and "recreating"himself each time he beamed down to a planet.

He wasn't killed and recreated, he was disassembled and reassembled, perfectly.

One’s Form is important because it comprises all of the things that are the things that make us what we are.
One important thing to keep in mind is that people are not set in stone. A clone would change to be different to the original but then so do you. Almost everything does change… a lot, every second from day to day.
 To be you a body just has to be as much you as you twenty years ago. 
There is a good deal of wriggle room.
They just have to have enough of your important aspects to meet that standard.
Continuity is quite a minor aspect. I mean it’s important in paying your bills and keeping your heart beating but in defining a self it is just a line through time and space like everyone else’s.

None of that matters if it's not my specific individual awareness doing the experiencing. Personal continuity may be only one part of the jigsaw but it's an essential one.

Having a clone is somewhat like having a future self time-travel. You can see you from the outside and occupy a different space. But it is still you. Simply a you, living a different life.

No, it's not me. It's a clone. It can not be me, no matter what it appears to be from an external perspective.

Why do people care so much about the body/finite consciousness?  Instinct. Millions of years of evolution have wired us to care a great deal about this body but that does not mean it is important in defining us.

That's simply not true. When defining individual identity, it's essential.