Identity

[Y]

Identity seems to imply that it can be distinguished from something else - other identities? What I'm driving at is that identity seems to be a thing which is defined with reference to society; if there was no society and just me then it seems to me that identity would not even be a topic able to be discussed as a question of identity refers to social concepts. For example, one might refer to one's physical appearance as part of their identity, and this idea of an appearance may seem to be apart from a social definition, but I feel that in actuality the concept of appearance is wholly social: we may describe someone as having brown hair or blue eyes, utilising social concepts of these sounds we call words. We may go on to describe someone as being attractive or menacing, which further appeals to concepts which can only be social.

If we look at identitiy in terms of my mentality then I think this is an even clearer example of how identity is necessarily defined with reference to social concepts. One might suggest that someone has an identity which incorporates creativity, which surely necessarily appeals to the notion of a society to allow one to determine if someone is to be considered creative because how can one measure creativity against just himself?

I feel I haven't explained this at all well, but I will sum up by saying that it is of my opinion that if we wish to define our identity we must necessarily define it with reference to society.

[Daniel]

agreed, there must be some sort of explicit classification system that utilizes a unique combination of either numbers, letters, characters, or symbols for each person.

[vem]

Apr 5, 2010 1:27:52 GMT -4 Freud said:

Then how do you define someone with no personality or identity?

You define them as being nondescript.

[Daniel]

but there might be more than one person whom could be classified as "nondescript"

[vem]

exactly

[Daniel]

therefore, no distinguishment can be made between those 2 "nondescript" people.

[vem]

I think a person can be nondescript in one aspect of their character but not in another.
So in regard to "identity", the spectrum can be vast, especially considering for one example just the superficial or outward appearance differences between people. That alone makes up some of that person's identity. Am I on the right track here or have I gone off?

[Daniel]

Apr 23, 2010 8:20:23 GMT -4 vem said:

I think a person can be nondescript in one aspect of their character but not in another.
So in regard to "identity", the spectrum can be vast, especially considering for one example just the superficial or outward appearance differences between people. That alone makes up some of that person's identity. Am I on the right track here or have I gone off?

Slightly off...

You said...
"I think a person can be nondescript in one aspect of their character but not in another."

You need to specify what conditions of nondescriptiveness (i know it isn't a word... stop underlining it in red... GRR) need to be met first.

In other words, you need to specify what aspects of their character are non-descript (which you have not implied till now, and you also have not done this yet).

[vem]

oops....sorry dude. I'll give this more thought and get back to it. Thanks for the comment.