1.- Jacob, what is it that is meant by the word "me"? If one is reduced to mere awareness without any experience being registered, does he still own a "me"? In the purest sense, what is "me"? Would the "me" be unaffected by these kinds of changes?

*1).- The term ME in psychology is clear for English-speaking people. In French, the term MOI is a correct equivalent. In Spanish, the translation to MI is confusing. In Hebrew there is no equivalent term.

For an anti-parochially-dictated motivation, I'll use the term SELF instead. In French it is MEME, in Spanish MISMO, and in Hebrew ATZMI.

Thus, my answer is:

SELF is the result of the following components and their interactions:

A. - A person's inborn ARCHETYPES, composed of the Collective Unconscious derived from his tribe, clan, species, genus, and every ascendant whose genes were transmitted to him from the beginning of biological time.

B. - In-utero experiences.

C. - Natal experiences.

D. - Postnatal experiences.

E. - The brain's functioning, based on anatomical and/or biological status.

Postnatal experiences are divided in three kinds, according to the repository memory banks:

a. - Conscious, b. - Normal Unconscious, and c. - Repressed (Neurotic) Unconscious.

Thus, Self is made of dynamic memories. It is the "SOUL." For descriptive purposes, it may be subdivided into categories, of which the main one is the Historical Self ("the self as a story"). The historical self does not include the archetypal component.
Also, the "Ecological Self" which refers to the manner one reacts to the surroundings. (I have touched on these subjects in D-SP essays on SELF.)

Thus, knowing what one is referring to as "me" --actually self-- it is not problematic to answer the genie's first question.

2.- What is the minimum required "amount of body" that one has to have to consider himself a human being? Can a living brain in a jar still be a person?

*2).- This is a matter of definitions, which are arbitrary. Therefore, first give me the definitions. Yet I can offer some clarifications: For the mind to function, it requires constant impressions from the senses. With no sensory input, the cortical neurons cease to work in the way we call normal. Leave the eyes attached to the brain, and there will be some kind of "normal" cerebral activity. It can be checked by EEG monitoring. There are some D-SP essays related to this subject, like the recent one in OneList, on the hypothalamus and a separate one on mystical experiences.

3.- What minimal knowledge and intellectual skills must anyone possess to merit being considered a person? When does one first become "someone" with a "me"?

*3).- The answer must, by necessity, be approximate. By person I suppose you mean anybody capable of interacting intelligibly with the surrounding. This means that the ecological self is the first to develop. It is to be assumed that the sensory impressions act together in creating patterns ("gestalts") that given neurons are inbornly prepared to interpret as "the outside." The first gestalt marks the dawn of becoming a person. The ecological self is the first "me."

3a.- Is anyone in a dreamless but reversible coma, a person? Does he have a spirit? Is he "there"?

*3a).- As per definition, a human being can be judged to be a person when showing the capability of interacting meaningfully.

Spirit is a word with many acceptions, none of them a denotation. To primitive man, the wind was a supernatural manifestation. The wind of the breath was considered a related entity, bound to life.
In Hebrew, the word "ruach" means both wind and spirit. In Latin, the word spirit is related to respiration (breathing).
When an Arab alchemist first distilled ethanol from wine, it was named alcohol, meaning essence, the most important manifestation of matter. Its pungent taste, concentrated inebriating properties, and rapid evaporation (disappearance) accompanied by a cold sensation, were rightly considered as manifestations of a "spirit", so that it in the western world it was called spirit of wine, or "spirits."

Thus, Rick, what do you mean when asking if a comatose individual has a spirit? And what do you mean by "there"?

4.- What is life?

*4).- Life is a fatal disease. Birth, maturation, reproduction, senescence and death. Nowadays we are witnessing an iatrogenic (medically induced) distortion of senescence.
For Evolution is not "interested" in non-reproducing women or in non-productive men. H. sapiens, a product of evolution, modified and prolonged senescence. The forbidden fruit of Eden was the urge to investigate, descartesianly rejecting pompous authority.

But... there is no free apple. Doctors ought to be forced to live until 120. Sweet grandmothers were consensually invented by their daughters, and grannies by inertia. Witness what happened to Little Red Riding Hood.

5.- What is the relationship between the "me" and my experiences: how come the intangible "me" associates with tangible experiences?

*5).- The self is made of memories, which are expressions of tangibles saved as super-proteins (coprots and feprots). Experiences are created by tangible cognitive percepts in the form of light, sound, smell, taste and touch.

The affective components are products of protracted evolutional processes.
In order to understand them, first the survival value of the basic affection ought to be examined: Curiosity. Originally Latin, this word meant turning the attention toward something of value. "De minimis non curat lex" expresses the legislative principle that judges should not deal with simple misdemeanors.

From the beginning of biology, and even in the atomic world, there is a characteristic called tropism, meaning a tendency to move toward something. Atoms attract or reject atoms, then molecules, culminating in proteins, are affected by the medium. Further on, mono-cellular organisms move toward a source of food, adequate temperature and pH. Flowers turn toward the sun. As animals became more self-sufficient, tropism evolved to curiosity, which is turning attention toward something. (There is a D-SP mini-essay on LOVE.)

Therefore, affections initially derived from tropism. Tropos is a Greek word meaning turning. The three Greek Fates, who purportedly ruled --above the gods-- men's and women's lives, were in charge of spinning, measuring, and cutting the thread of life. The third Fate was named Atropos, because she would never turn away her gaze from her job. Thus, no matter what the quality or the length were, life's end was irrevocably determined at that point.

The word fate, therefore, has a "fatal" connotation, distinct from destiny. Atropine, an early poison, determined the end of its drinker's life.
Tropism is clearly a life-giving property, and curiosity, the initial affection, is its evolutional derivative.

6.- How is any benefit to the "me" accrued from an experience? Where's the profit to the "me" in this association?

*6).- "Benefit" is an anthropomorphic term. Each experience added to the memory banks becomes an accruement to the self.

6a.- Is anything physical or mental changed or added to the "me"?

*6a).- "Mental" is also physical, in the form of biological processes and infra-radio waves. That E-M radiations are both particles and waves, is not just an interesting concept: in the absence of that characteristic, nothing would exist, let alone intelligence. Two synchronized telescopes separated by 1 km. have a combined resolution of a 1 km. in diameter lens. Because the light waves arriving to each syncronized telescope are made to interfere positively. Our mind works by means of interference, as I have previously recorded.