>How do you set the bounds of a conscious entity though?
Honestly, I believe there is a closed system inside us that is kept "alive" by bodily functions and kept safe from decoherence - somehow. I can't explain why. Some claim it's inside microtubules, but I'm currently lacking knowledge in biology/physics combo to trust the papers enough without diving more into the matter.
The concept itself does make sense and it's been a point of discussion of many physicists, I'd refer you too look at quantum consciousness theories, there are a few familiar names there that suggest it and the explanations will be far more detailed and accurate then I can provide. I'd say that the ability to influence a wave collapse is "free will" and it's related to intelligence, consciousness of the subject and current state of mind/body. And I'd say it's distributed, so even tho one might have a strong pull on the wave, the decision is ultimately made by summing the vectors of all beings focused on that particular result.
>How would it explain the persistance of identity across lapses of consciousness?
Now, that's a good question - especially if someone is 100% completely dead and comes back to life. I'd say your "soul/consciousness" know wheres to return when you lapse but on one hand, that's astral mumbo jumbo. Possibly brain patterns? My theory is that when you're born, the soul comes in and is "hashed" by current state of the universe (check out Jyotish, I know it's astrology but damn that shit got me wondering a lot of times), this effects your brain patterns and it keeps this unique "hash" until you die, then the next life is your soul being rehashed again (so karma still applies, hashes change but they're like a blockchain let's say - the next one is the result of the previous ones and their work).
So I'd say that activating the human body - biologically bringing it back to "conscious" state - starts a process that creates specific patterns which match the signature of your current conscious soul (consciousness, whatever) and entangles them. Complete comeback of someone who is really dead isn't possible because the system is so damaged and you cannot activate it to create that pattern again (could possibly be linked to DMT being released/bound and activated, which opens a port for your consciousness to detach.
Tried to keep it as short and understandable, so sorry about the non-scientific mumbo jumbo, but it provides great metaphors and shortens my thoughts - and I assume a lot of it is true, but boilerplated and snake oiled for generic masses.