Yes, there is the Buddhist strategy of simply denying that there is a “self” (at least in any sense that would give rise to worries about identity over time). In the spirit of the most recent comic, I prefer the opposite strategy. Panselfism – at a fundamental level, *everything* is me!

It occurs to me somewhat irrelevantly that – in the original form, without the nasty twist of drowning duplicates – in a Buddhist conception, the question doesn’t arise. It’s a core teaching that there is no mystical ‘self’ in which your identity is located, the self that Sam Starfall is worried about. There is merely a continual and contingent series of moment-by-moment becomings, conditioned by the kamma/karma or action of previous moments. If the laws of physics dictate that one of these becomings is on Planet Pistachio, so be it!

Did you ever see The Prestige? If not, then I recommend checking it out; towards the end you get a great little discussion of just this sort.

‘Man, I went into this little room, and there was a flash and the door opened and I was on this amazing puce planet, and there was this, well kind of a cross between a leprechaun and a jellyfish who gave me literally the most INCREDIBLE pistachio ice cream! Then they sent me back using the same box. No, seriously it was ME, I mean you wouldn’t say I was a different person if I went to the corner shop and came out again, would you? Well it was like that. Even my wife says I’m the same person. The ice cream is really something else. Sure you don’t want to try it?’

Well, would you try it? Perhaps there’s a follow-up cartoon somewhere I haven’t discovered yet …