Philosophy of Identity

Introduction

To be demonstrated in this paper is not only that things have a way that they are, but also that any such way they may be is salient; that these ways a thing may be are not isomorphic to conceptions or ideations of the thing; that to each identity an interest corresponds; a model of the specification of identity from more general substrates (or from universals to particulars if you’d like), and a metaphysical exposition of the same.

It is important to remark on the wave of conflation between identity and self-concept that we have seen during the 21st century. Self-concept is a kind of ideation; nothing about that means it is either accurate or inaccurate, so there are two cases that must be addressed: the case in which identity does not exist, ergo self-concept is equally valid to the notion of concrete identity that would elsewise exist without respect to ideations thereabout, and the case in which self-concept seeks to apprehend the identity and bring its contents to the surface of consciousness. In the former case, where identity does not meaningfully exist—why identify? The very act of authorship and conceiving of oneself or something else as a particular thing betrays a conviction that there is or can be a particular way that thing is. In the latter case, the conception may indeed be accurate, but it may not be. It would surely be admitted that not all self-conceptions are equally accurate ideations of the targeted object (the identity of the thing); denial hereof is denial of delusion in general and a host of personality disorders. Therefore, while conception may converge on identity, it can certainly diverge from identity, and the identity isn’t a construct of consciousness just because consciousness naturally forms apprehensions of objects.

The identity of a thing as we might experience it is essentially its composition of bits, where bits are the elementary quanta or particles of information. The arrangement of the bits defines and determines the condition of the thing, but naturally, that thing’s identity does not exist in a vacuum—that identity, by virtue of being defined, will be defined against that which it is not:

Ergo, the very fact that distinction is determinable, and that distinctions appear either more or less significant to observers, holds the implicate proof of identity as a non-abstract reality, excepting metaphysical speculations to be engaged later. A syllogistic demonstration amounting to, “things can be more similar or more different,” would be less necessary than the one above, and will be excluded, although it is an important point. It’s basically an explicate logic of D⇔R, any determinate thing will be defined against (and relative to) any thing it is  not, but it will still be less distinguished against those things most similar to it. Suffice it to say that where difference appears and to the degree it appears, there must be something substantiating even the bare appearance, which is an argument applicable more generally to claims of illusionary natures where they in reality might only demand an answer to the cause of the specific illusion.

Scales of Identity

We have established that an identity is a composition of information, a structure. For an identity to become more specific, it must be more particularly defined—which is to say the complexity of the composition increases. For any set of information to become more specific, it must be specified from a set that is more immediately general, in another manner of speaking, for something to become more particular, it must be particularized from something more universal. Any triangle is a triangle before it is an isosceles or scalene triangle, triangularity is the prerequisite condition for any specification thereof. A human is a human before he can be a human of a certain kind, or an individual human, an animal must be an animal before it is a certain species of animal. This is not to be read as reduction of more particular things into more general things, but rather as a nestling of those more particular things into their prerequisite conditional identities. This model is both intuitive and empirical by way of phylogeny, and can be visualized in the following diagrams:

Global → Organic → Animal → Special → Racial → Ethnic → Familial → Individual

Two principal objections might be raised to this model, and I must admit that while I believe it is accurate, it is not—nor is it meant to be, comprehensive. The first is that an individual could not be “just” an animal-qua-animal, as in, it is not an occupiable identity, nor are the species and so on. I think this is fair, although the possibility of monotypic taxa, genera and even endlings are relevant, however, these more-general foundational identities are still prerequisite conditions for the described specifications to occur, and there is a set of information that describes the organic against the inorganic, the animal against the inanimate and so on—even if they are not occupiable. Moreover, the individual as the termination of identity is salient.

The second is the question of race, since its consideration as a legitimate taxonomical classification is the subject of fervent objection. The reason the scientific community does not consider race a taxonomic category the same way species and subspecies are, is on account of the lack of fixed genetic differences between races. Fixed genetic differences being genes that 100% of the members of one group have, and 0% of others have. This is true, probably because the relative intelligence of Homo sapiens enabled superior modes of communication and geographic distribution. Many subspecies of wolves and chimpanzees have tiny quantities of but nonetheless existent fixed genetic differences, and private allele differentials comparable to those found between different human races. Private alleles being those found only in one group, but which are not ubiquitous amongst that group. The significance of the difference between as little as 0.1% fixed genetic difference with upwards of 10% private allele difference against no fixed genetic difference with the same private allele difference should be called into question and side-eyed. But ultimately, race does not need to be a synonym for subspecies to be a real marker of identity, particularly where situated and scaled appropriately. If the argument against race as a legitimate taxonomic class were levied against it as a scale of identity generally, the exact same argument would apply to families and ethnicities—though both obviously share a respective greater propensities for shared genetics. Greater internal genetic variation propensities are also signaled against rigid classification, specifically the greater genetic diversity within races than between them, but the same is true within the genus Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos) than between Pan and Homo sapiens. Furthermore, the difficulty in defining racial boundaries (aside from being a continuum fallacy when employed to invalidate racial categorization in general) is irrelevant to this model because we do not predicate rigidity therein, just as you will find disagreements among geneticists regarding exactly to what degree Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis differ. That is, some consider us merely co-general, while others consider the latter a subspecies of the former on account of our fertile hybridization. Indeed, the category of a species need not be absolutely parameterized in order for it to inform students of genetic or behavioral commonality between organisms. Likewise with ethnicity in humans. For what reason would this logic terminate at their intermediary? Only because of appeals to fear and arguments from consequences about what racial consciousness may “lead to.” Of course, this has no bearing on the validity of the identity in our model. And since principal component analysis demonstrates racial clustering of ethnicities (that is, PCA clusters subtypes how one would expect; the Spanish nearer to the French than any Kenyan, and likewise any Kenyan to any other Kenyan than to any Frenchman). It stands to reason that this reveals something about the specification of identity at different scales, rather than negates it as a reality.

Conditional Goods

The interest of a thing, what is good for it as that thing, is dependent entirely on the identity of that thing at the relevant scale. Because identity is scaled such that more specific identities are specified from and nestled within more general identities, the same is true of interest. There is a shared good between all animals, an identical interest at that scale, however, when the identity of an entity is specified from only being an animal, the interest will be specified accordingly. The lion and the zebra share all interests that are necessitated by the animal state, where the lion is in fact lion-qua-animal, its interest is identical to anything else qua-animal. Where the lion is animal-qua-lion, its immediate interests will appear to diverge radically from those of the zebra. We can nuance this further by addressing what I suspect may cross a reader’s mind, ecosystemic interests ultimately qualifying the predation as beneficial to prey animals, and we will do so by considering the interest of the zebra-qua-individual. It’s not in the individual zebra’s interest insofar as that zebra is an individual and not only zebra in general, to be eaten by the lion, even if it were good for zebras generally by way of an ecosystemic balancing.

This is true vertically, up the increasingly general scales of identity, and horizontally, in shared, contrary, or conflicting interests between those of similarly scaled, but contrarily defined identities. Difference in the identity of entities where there are no evolved or adapted symbioses or instances of mutualism is liable to create conflict centered on the divergent interests of those entities. Increasing similarity in identity mitigates divergent interests that would elsewise arise had the entities not shared in more general scales of identity; doing so is therefore conducive to concord and harmony, though all entities will still be distinguished against their foundational layers of identity in consideration of their individuality—and contrary individual, familial and tribal interests are certainly enough to stimulate conflict. Moreover, where interest is general and not suspended from particular identities, such as the interest in common resources, variation in identity supplemented by the peculiar interests thereof are still liable to conflict in their targeting of the same objects, as might be seen with two species of predators occupying the same ecological niche. Humanity is now insulated against species-scaled conflict, having won the evolutionary arms race that catalyzed our potential to transcend interspecies competition, more or less. At one time in our history, interspecies competition would have been a real threat; being past that now, the essence of what I am describing may seem somewhat foreign from the human perspective. It does still exist however, even if we are largely insulated from it and it is reduced to latency. Nevertheless, humans have always been intraspecifically competitive, where our most prevalent danger outside of the pathogenic is from within our own species. At another time, intertribal conflict was a historical constant, persisting longer as a common occurrence was interfamilial conflict, which is now reduced due to weakened identification of one’s own identity as belonging to broader identities, but as established earlier, identification/self-concept ≠ identity, and the same is true of conceived interests, admitting that not every entity is equally capable of best identifying what will benefit them maximally.

Where the function of politics is to enable and enact the good of the nation’s constituents, the citizenry, polity must be concerned with the mitigation of conflict arising from different interests downstream of different identities. This is something seen on the international stage in geopolitics, especially after both world wars with the formation of the United Nations and later with the European Union. We see this less so at the intranational scale in the west, where the relevant differing constituents are races and ethnicities, and you cannot substitute identities with nationalities as easily as you might on the international stage—doing so would incur circularity, i.e. the national identity is the nationality. Obviously, to engage this matter with cognitive sobriety, certain cultural and pseudo-moral artifacts must be discarded. Particularly the matter of inconsistent social permissibility of in-group identification, whereby we see some identities deconstructed and others of the exact nature and scale affirmed. Persistent delusional apprehensions of identity are not equipped to perform the aforementioned mitigation, unless of course they’re intentionally subversive or antagonistic, in which case they’re reducible to a form of warfare à la race struggle. In any case, homogeneity, sameness of the kind, is conducive to enabling and enacting of more foundational interests, allowing the polity to only be concerned with the mitigation of contrariety at more local scales.

Metaphysics of Identity

The following metaphysical exposition is unnecessary to affirm the existence of identity as described, it is sound within the materialist paradigm—but that paradigm is incorrect, so it’s appropriate to situate the above philosophy in the context of monistic idealism, and metaphysics more broadly. Neither monism, immaterialism nor idealism will be extensively argued for herein, but briefly: reality must be unitary in much the same way specific identities must be specified from general ones, multiplicity necessitates relativity, which demands a relational medium between related entities or objects, best described by Chris Langan’s syndiffeonesis in his CTMU, which means “difference in sameness,” and posits the reducibility to sameness of any differentia, by the very fact that they exist relative to one another. Only an immaterial substrate can satisfy this, because corporeality itself is multiple and composite, and any medium would simply be another object relative to the originally related. The immaterial nature must in some sense be ideal or mental, metastructurally, to effect itself as mind—where minds are not particle arrangements or the products thereof.

The explicated order of an ideal unity would be a virtual duality, because the very nature of that one thing would necessarily unfold virtually into two things in the manner to be described. Suppose that one thing was both a thing that is, and a way that thing is. At the level of the one thing in question, the “thing that is,” and “way that thing is,” are isomorphic—exactly the same. But were that thing the metastructure of a mind, or Nous or Divine Mind, then the capacity to reify the distinction between the two could be prepossessed, as could the capacity to abstract a subject from its object. It is important to note however, that the theoretical process of doing so constitutes the second order of being, or the second hypostasis thereof. This should bring Neoplatonism to mind, Plotinus’ hypostases in particular, wherein the One emanates Nous, or intellect, which itself emanates the World Soul. Emanation here should be regarded as an unfolding, or the explicative logic of the antecedent. Priors must prepossess their posteriors down the chain without being reducible thereto save by the qualification that the posteriors are indeed the explicates of the priors. The model described may differ in some respects to Plotinian hypostases, but it is certainly similar in principle. Virtual duality being the explicate order of unity is salient, and by “virtual,” non-fundamental is meant. Where the virtual distinction between a thing, or even entity as a subject and its (meta)structure or object can be conceived of and reified, which is possible where reality is taken to be ideal in some sense, continued reification of structures can be conceived of and occupied, that is to say: thought of and thought from. As mind defines structures, they are not merely confined to an ideal vacuum, they are involutionarily participated in and continually evolved by that participation. Hereby we have a metaphysic of identity that comes about by a kind of self-definition, which is not to suggest total self-authorship without qualification, because change in occupied identities does not simply occur by profession that it has occurred, but rather a tangible conditioning of the information participated in by the soul over time—because change is incremental and continuous.

If all of this is granted, the objection may arise that the described metaphysic itself minimizes the importance of identity by reducing its existence to dependence on a self-same primordial unity, which would hold greater ontological status than the multitudinous identities of objects in the world. This is somewhat true, however, with the emanative process being one of explication rather than arbitrary creation, identities are in some sense valid explicates. It is not as though the mind described has anything to inform the process with other than its intrinsic nature, where those objects are prepossessed in a predivided state, as a metastructure might prepossess the capacity for many, but not just any posterior structure, and such structures would not only depend on the metastructure but be of it. Moreover, it is important to note that at the present level of reality, identities are relevant and do not cease to be so just because they are only present in the familiar state at a certain level of reality.

We are brought back to self-concept as it found relevance in the metaphysical exposition above. No doubt some might be bothered by the apparent minimization of self-determination that comes with the suggestion of inheriting a “way you are.” A self-determinacy that stands beside the way an entity is, its identity, like a soul that is a soul-itself before it is a soul involved in a certain identity, is a prerequisite to souls as information-composites purely, but this does not negate the affect that participation has on the soul. Plotinus wrestled with the impassibility of the soul, suggesting its ultimate inviolability while still suffering in some regard from the affect of matter. Suppose a bare mind, then a mind that is saturated with a certain state, say sadness, the state of sadness does not change the soul insofar as it is only a soul into something else, nor does the soul insofar as it is a soul change when sadness gives way to happiness. Souls have the capacity to retain structure without being reduced thereto, being metastructures relative to any way the soul may be conditioned, even though it may be totally enamored with the structure. Further, idealism does suggest alternative means for exercising determination over one’s state and identity, but mental causal power is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say that simple ideation and profession thereof does not constitute grounds for this even in idealism.

Generally speaking, self-concept is chiefly informed by the individual scale of identity, often abstracted from the more general scales that allow for it. This is because of its immediacy, it is easy to drive a wedge between the self and the people from which it is specified, and the world at large even, especially today. This is less so the case amongst those raised in families or communities that instill a sense of belonging, and it often diminishes to some degree when people have children, seeing their identity extended before their eyes.

Another relevant point to recover in light of metaphysics, is Id⇒In. Entities involved in particular identities seeking the interest thereof, can be regarded as a phenomenal mimesis of desire for the Platonic Good, which is taken to be ubiquitous amongst all things. I am not suggesting these interests are identical to the Good of Platonism; rather, I am granting the existence of the Good and suggesting that the desire therefor is instantiated as things occupying identities seeking after the interests thereof. Much like an uppercase “G” universal Good being registered particularly as conditional goods, or interests. Note, that the attainment of an interest is often sustaining the entity as a whole, specifically a totality, or is increasing its wholeness or composite totality. Totality itself is a composite unity, and can be taken to be something of an image or mimesis of true underlying unity.

A final metaphysical matter will be against the equivocation of particular things to other particular things, considered insofar as (and at the level of which) those particular things are indeed particular things. It is granted that particular things are reducible general things, this does not however, extend to the reduction of a particular thing to another particular thing where the things in question are considered in their particularity. Much like A=A and A≠B; even where A and B are reductively X, it is again a matter of considering the particular where it is particular.

The plate-qua-reality may be identical to the chair-qua-reality, when they are considered at more fundamental levels, but the plate-qua-plate is irreducible to the chair-qua-chair as evidenced by the lack of plateness in the chair, and the same is true of reality’s irreducibility to the plate-qua-plate, because again, plateness taken as plateness is not a ubiquitous quality of reality on the whole.

Conclusion

An identity is the composite of information that defines a thing as that thing and not another thing, being defined means that the identity of that thing will be defined against that which it is not, and it will be relative thereto—the relations between things reveal those things that are similar, and things that are more distant (D⇔R). A particular identity is specified from more general substrate identities, complexity in composition and divergent branches thereof imply increasingly general (more universal) substrates. Interest depends on identity; what is good for a thing as that thing is determined by what that thing is (Id⇒In). The more divergent two identities are, the more divergent their interests will be. Metaphysically speaking, local interests are mimesis of the global Good, registered at the particular scale and pertaining to particular things. The metaphysical advent of identity is an ideative and involutive process of mind. Self-concept can diverge from the actual contents comprising the identity, because it depends on imperfect assessors who are susceptible to both incompetence and delusion.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Here expressed is my gratitude to an anonymous editor and friend, thank you.