[asveikau]

Seems like a long-winded way to say you suffer from anxiety.

> like a virus doesn't become part of me -- the immune system acts a biological discriminator between what is part of me, and what is not

But what about symbiotic organisms? What about your microbiome? Or the mitochondria, which began its existence as a separate organism? Or, they say our DNA includes many viruses that our ancestors contracted. A number of these things do stick with us and we sometimes even become totally dependent on them to function.

[rendx]

Exactly? I agree that identity is a fuzzy construct which includes socially constructed elements, and is not a fundamental "thing" that can be observed externally and then named "identity". I disagree that it is therefore "fiction"; as a concept, it is very real? My point was that I don't see how you can claim that identity is nonexistent ("lack of identity"), since the moment I use the term, I "create" and "have" it; it is a flexible enough umbrella to include the distributed system of my body, since I cannot exist separately from it? What "belongs to me" contributes to my identity.

To pick one possible simple and broad definition from WP, "Identity is the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, or expressions that characterize a person or a group." -- you made it sound like that set is empty, which doesn't make sense to me. My identity is part of "I". Every being has an identity; it's not something you can get rid of?