What is identity?

An interesting rant from Joi Ito about the nature of identity and how he thinks it needs to be handled in an online enviroment.

I'm not sure if I agree with him, I haven't given the subject a lot of thought, but the underlying philosophical points are fun to play with.

Who are you? And how many of you are there?

Personally, I'm kick starting my fourth identity, at least, not counting cover stories that I use to live in occupied territory. And I seriously doubt that this will be the final identity that I use. Looking back, I seem to have a routine of about five years from conception of a new identitiy, through gestation of the identitiy, into a full realiziation of the identity, and then finally the death of the identitiy. Followed by 2-3 years of recovery after the death of the identitiy, and then conception of a new identitiy. I think I'm in the gestation phase right now, though it still might be the conception phase.