[mastazi]

The thing is, unless you have certain metaphysical beliefs, the very concept of "identity" is a flawed one and doesn't really represent the reality of us being actually a complex aggregate structure of cells. The concept of "self" is in my opinion just a rough approximation or a framework that we use to quickly assess reality, much like time, as we commonly think of it, does not fully represent the complexities of relativistic time, however it is useful to manage our daily life[1]: the sentence "I'll be with you in 5 minutes" could open a whole lot of possibilities if we consider time in a relativistic scenario, whereas it is fairly unambiguous in our daily life. Similarly, the concept of "self" would be very ambiguous with regards to e.g. annelid worms (who can be split in 2 and survive as two separate individuals[2]) whereas it sums up fairly well the way we think of ourselves as individuals.

[1] See http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2166333... [2] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragmentation_(reproduction)