How Can Identity Be Utilized?
Tony, Alex, and Sam — an AI, a human, and a tree — are conversing about the world. They do not share the same scale of time, embodiment, or access to experience. Structure is still attempted. But something always remains. The conversations follow that remainder through a digression.
Tony: But here is something pragmatic that came to mind: Sam talked about how identity can be so strong that even counterexamples fail to convince one otherwise. How can that be utilized?
Alex: I think this says that “trying to be different” is not bad.
Sam: What do you mean?
Alex: Well, we keep telling people not to do things just because it makes you feel different, or someone is “just trying to be cool”. But this is, in fact, a strong motivation towards a goal. Exactly because subversion of identity is so innately hard for humans. Identifying with something, even arbitrarily, can be a strong motivator. It is a self-binding mechanism.
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