Tentum

A tentum, Latin for "to stretch" or "to extend," is a single period of sentience bookended by the loss of sentience. This experiential span between unconsciousness is the only "guaranteed quantity" of experiential time that one can reasonably assume at a given outpost.

Once one is unconscious whether by being knocked-out, asleep, in a coma, or dead, then you have a discrete and definitive bookend in which the egonaut could switch, in which case, you wouldn't wake up in your body tomorrow, but someone else (or more specifically another egonaut) would. This possible phenomenon is called Ego Divisus.

Understanding Tentums

Imagine Person A wakes up, stays awake for 12 hours, then goes back to sleep instantly. This would be a 12 hour tentum.

If Person A regains sentience while asleep by having a dream for 30 minutes, then loses sentience again, that would be a 30 minute tentum.

If Person A wakes up 6 hours later and then dies suddenly 4 hours after that, that would be a 4 hour tentum.

Cloning Example

The Cloning Example for tentums goes as follows:

If every night when you fall asleep, some mad scientist made an exact atomic replica of you, disintegrated the original you without a trace, and placed the replica where you fell asleep, you would feel just as you do now.
All of your memories are just stored information; your egonaut didn't need to be the one to experience the moments, it just needs to have access to those stored memory now.

Likewise, this exact replica would feel everyday like it had been there being you for your entire life despite having only been created hours prior. Is this the answer to our concept of identity and the persistence of self? Does the ship of Theseus sail at day and port at night?

Tentum

Understanding Tentums

Cloning Example

See Also