[nkrisc]

Obviously I don't know how other people feel, but even when I have to project different "identities" in different social situations, I'm still the same person within and just tailoring the output to be appropriate to the settings. I act differently when I'm playing with my son, when I'm at work, when I'm with my wife, etc... But I'm always the same person in all those situations with the same thoughts, the same desires, and can be thinking about those other situations while actively expressing a different "identity" for a different one.

I think the mask analogy is a good one, it feels to me that regardless of what "mask" I'm wearing, I'm still the same, singular person underneath it in all situations. I am only one person, even if I only choose to show selective parts of my personality at different times.

[vianneychevalie]

If you like this topic, what you’re describing is the essentialist worldview, and in my opinion a major part of societal debates today touch on the rejection of this worldview (classically by existentialists).

Is there stability to who you are? This question can also be asked of nations, of language… And this debate dates back to Plato.

[noobker]

> But I'm always the same person in all those situations with the same thoughts, the same desires

I think that's debatable, and further, a lot of that coherence is a personal/cultural choice and not something inherent to consciousness. At a minimum, you might admit the existence of biases like anchoring -- maybe you'll more heavily weight your child's desires while playing with them versus when your in the middle of work a day later (maybe vice versa!) -- but such things might be a hint of how these other perspectives work.