Art by smbc-comics
Consciousness is often said to disappear in deep, dreamless sleep. We argue that this assumption is oversimplified. Unless dreamless sleep is defined as unconscious from the outset there are good empirical and theoretical reasons for saying that a range of different types of sleep experience, some of which are distinct from dreaming, can occur in all stages of sleep.
Pubmed Articles
Does Consciousness Disappear in Dreamless Sleep?
Sciencealert Article We Were Wrong About Consciousness Disappearing in Dreamless Sleep, Say Scientists
A human being is a process of computation. Ending the computation is death. Pausing the computation is, well, simply pausing the computation. It has no profound significance.
(This is also my answer to the “teleporter problem.” As long as the computation continues, a change in the substrate on which it takes place also has no profound significance.)
It does to the person being “deleted”.