AKMA wonders what we can learn from millennia of thought about what constitutes identity. He asks: What does a digital blessing stick to? What is the who of the Web? And how does that affect the proposal for digital identities, e.g., Passport, Liberty Alliance,…

Biometric makers push the idea that physical characteristics mark you as a particular human. But that doesn’t account for pod people. Blessings adhere not to the physical marks but to “something more” that AKMA’s tradition calls “soul.” ”

Now AKMA brings it back to the digital world. Our digital identity is created by our digits — our fingers typing digits. (He later connects “fictive identities” with the Latin root for fiction: fingere. Cool.) Our fingers enact identity through the words we type. Our acts further substantiates our digital identity. Someone whose physicality is limited may find his/her online identity to be more real. We make ourselves online. But what are the characteristics and limitations of our online identities?

The key point: Our identities are already constituted nonsubstantially. Our online identies don’t represent a new space and type of identity but is instead a recognition and embracing of what has always been at the heart of identity. It thrusts role-playing and authorial voice to the fore in the question of “true” identity.

So, “perhaps blessings stick precisely to our identity as we play them, blog them, confect them, mold, share and make these fictive selves physically and online…”

Wow. Terrific lead-off presentation.

[Great point. But it leaves me back worrying about ignoring the body as inessential to the identity. AKMA, am I missing your point?]

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