If the sperm that fertilized the proper egg of one of my great-great-great-great grandmothers had been a different sperm (from the one that actually fertilized it) and, apart from that, everything had been pretty the same until today, wouldn't I be me?

It isn't entirely obvious that I, say, could have been female from conception, and the assumption that the fertilizing sperm was different certainly leaves that possibility open. But if I could have been female, then your great-great-great grandfather (let's say) could have been female, and one of your great-great grandwhatever's parents would have had a hard time conceiving a child together. Maybe that isn't the sort of possibility you had in mind. But it's not obvious how to restrict it and still get plausible results. Let's suppose you could have been the result of fertilization by a different sperm. What's so special about the sperm? Why not a different ovum, too? But now consider that other ovum and sperm. The latter could have fertilized the former even if the ovum and sperm from which you were actually formed still got together. But then are you your own twin? I don't think so. So it doesn't look as if you could have been the product of a different ovum and a different sperm. But if not, then...

If my mum hadn't got pregnant with me and I'd never been born, would I be someone else? Sorry that isn't very well phrased, I hope you understand what I mean.

I think most philosophers nowadays would say, no: If your mother had never gotten pregnant, then you simply would not have existed. It's not a pleasant thought, at least not for you, but there you have it.

There is a lot of evidence that reincarnation is a fact, yet the proposition and evidence are ignored or rejected by western society. What evidence would have to be presented for it to be accepted?

I can well imagine that there could be such evidence. But for the evidence to be truly trustworthy, it would have to be collected by people who were neutral, more or less, on what it was supposed to demonstrate, and the evidence would have to be in some sense replicable, and to stand up to critical scrutiny by reasonably neutral parties. So far as I'm aware, there is no evidence for reincarnation that meets anything like this sort of standard, however.

Could I have been my sister? Thanks, Bob.

Try this question: Could you have been your sister and your sister been you and everything else been pretty much as it is? I find it kind of hard to get my mind around that: In what precisely would it consist that you were her and she were you? There are certain conceptions of the soul that would make sense of that: Your soul would occupy her body and hers would occupy yours. But even those philosophers attracted to a notion of soul have usually thought the soul was more intimately connected to the body than that: If we accept that kind of possibility, who's to say souls aren't switching bodies every time someone falls asleep? So suppose we agree that isn't possible. Now it clearly is possible that she should have existed without you. But could it have happened that you should have existed without her but, so to speak, as her? What on earth is that supposed to mean? Either she exists or she doesn't, and if she doesn't exist, then you can't be her. (Perhaps you could have looked like her and...