Great post! fwiw, I actually agree that "past personhood" is also sufficient. When I appealed to the fact that the sleeping hermit unquestionably "has a mind", I didn't mean to rest anything on the present tense (I agree that your cellular-disassembly case shows that the present moment isn't essential). So I guess I didn't word that very well. The crucial thing is just that their mind for sure *exists* (timelessly speaking), and *that existing being* will be worse off if their brain and body is not re-assembled. This contrasts with the mindless embryo, for which - if it does not develop further - there never exists a mind that is personally harmed by a failure to extend its life further.

A point we may(?) disagree on is that your initial explanations appealed to the hermit's past *preference* not to be killed. I think that "temporary depression" cases show that such a preference is not essential. What matters is just that the candidate future life, psychologically continuous with the past person, would be a positive one (adding to the overall welfare of the person's complete life, considered timelessly).

(Though given your latest comments about "convenient fictions", perhaps you didn't mean to rest too much on the preference talk either, and our views are more or less equivalent!)