What is Identity?

[Trusk'our he/him]

Identity has been a rather difficult thing to understand for me, but I've come up with another proposal for its function. 

We know that Identity acts as a marker for your Investiture, so when a Feruchemist stores an attribute it's keyed to them. I like to think of this as a radio frequency, where the Investiture of the Metalmind and the Investiture of the Feruchemist are in tune, possibly like how Navani was able to move Stormlight from one Gemstone to another via frequency manipulation. 

We also know that Identity develops as an entity gains sentience and that this cognition can be lost alongside that Identity. 
Lifeless and highly-Invested Awakened objects have a separate Identity from their Awakener, the Malwish medallions have an Identity that lets them act more independently, and the loss of Connection and Identity for the Singers rendered them obedient as well as very dull of mind. This could also help explain why Hemalurgic constructs are so vulnerable to control, particularly Koloss- the spikes must bypass their Identity to function, which creates a road for other Investiture to enter. A weakening of the base Identity (like with Koloss in Era1 or Charred) makes it much easier to take control as well, as there's less resistance. 

Identity can be affected by appearance and is part of why you appear as you do in the Cognitive Realm, but blanking it isn't enough to alter how tapping health would affect you. 

Lastly, we know from Shai that Identity is constantly shifting and evolving. I think that this is because Identity is an emergent property of your Connections, with your Spiritweb comprised of Investiture, which is shaped and given context by Connection, which your Identity attunes its frequency to. Your Identity and Connection are very closely related, so much so that Hemalurgic duralumin affects both. 

So, I think that Identity is like a frequency that your soul vibrates to, kind of like a Rhythm but instead of being the tune of a general spiritual concept (which is what I'm guessing Rhythms are) it is your own special spiritual ideal. It determines one's autonomy and independent thought, and weakening it makes you more susceptible to control from outside sources. It can change based on Connections you have. It seems to be an emergent property of many Connections coming together, seemingly like how consciousness is an emergent property born of many thoughts (not trying to advocate this outlook on consciousness, just using it as the best explanation I can find), and can be suppressed independently from Connection, though Connection seems to influence it as a more base-level attribute. 

Based on these facts and guesses, I think that messing with Identity can be used primarily to affect Investiture compatability (like with tapping others' Metalminds or Hemalurgically Compounding), contribute significantly to mind control (as with Hemalurgic constructs, Slaveform Singers, and Charred), add to autonomous thought/action (Awakened Metalminds and other Invested machines), or possibly create hive-minds (like with Sleepless). 

I still wonder whether physical alterations are viable through Identity manipulation, but I'm starting to doubt it somewhat. 

Any thoughts? I'd love to update this with ideas and information others can bring in 

[therunner he/him]

I always saw Identity as effectively a "tag" on Investiture, or perhaps like anti-gens on cells.
Something that let's Investiture that comprises particular spiritweb recognize what is still 'it'.

9 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Lastly, we know from Shai that Identity is constantly shifting and evolving. I think that this is because Identity is an emergent property of your Connections, with your Spiritweb comprised of Investiture, which is shaped and given context by Connection, which your Identity attunes its frequency to.

I don't think Identity is emergent property of Connections, I think they are two different fundamental concepts, though heavily related.

If you can assume different Identity, you can also assume different Connections (e.g. tapping foreign metalminds or Investiture), and having different Connections will to some level alter your Identity (tapping Connection to alter languages/accents).

[+hwiles He/Him]

14 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Identity has been a rather difficult thing to understand for me, but I've come up with another proposal for its function. 

We know that Identity acts as a marker for your Investiture, so when a Feruchemist stores an attribute it's keyed to them. I like to think of this as a radio frequency, where the Investiture of the Metalmind and the Investiture of the Feruchemist are in tune, possibly like how Navani was able to move Stormlight from one Gemstone to another via frequency manipulation. 

We also know that Identity develops as an entity gains sentience and that this cognition can be lost alongside that Identity. 
Lifeless and highly-Invested Awakened objects have a separate Identity from their Awakener, the Malwish medallions have an Identity that lets them act more independently, and the loss of Connection and Identity for the Singers rendered them obedient as well as very dull of mind. This could also help explain why Hemalurgic constructs are so vulnerable to control, particularly Koloss- the spikes must bypass their Identity to function, which creates a road for other Investiture to enter. A weakening of the base Identity (like with Koloss in Era1 or Charred) makes it much easier to take control as well, as there's less resistance. 

Identity can be affected by appearance and is part of why you appear as you do in the Cognitive Realm, but blanking it isn't enough to alter how tapping health would affect you. 

Lastly, we know from Shai that Identity is constantly shifting and evolving. I think that this is because Identity is an emergent property of your Connections, with your Spiritweb comprised of Investiture, which is shaped and given context by Connection, which your Identity attunes its frequency to. Your Identity and Connection are very closely related, so much so that Hemalurgic duralumin affects both. 

So, I think that Identity is like a frequency that your soul vibrates to, kind of like a Rhythm but instead of being the tune of a general spiritual concept (which is what I'm guessing Rhythms are) it is your own special spiritual ideal. It determines one's autonomy and independent thought, and weakening it makes you more susceptible to control from outside sources. It can change based on Connections you have. It seems to be an emergent property of many Connections coming together, seemingly like how consciousness is an emergent property born of many thoughts (not trying to advocate this outlook on consciousness, just using it as the best explanation I can find), and can be suppressed independently from Connection, though Connection seems to influence it as a more base-level attribute. 

Based on these facts and guesses, I think that messing with Identity can be used primarily to affect Investiture compatability (like with tapping others' Metalminds or Hemalurgically Compounding), contribute significantly to mind control (as with Hemalurgic constructs, Slaveform Singers, and Charred), add to autonomous thought/action (Awakened Metalminds and other Invested machines), or possibly create hive-minds (like with Sleepless). 

I still wonder whether physical alterations are viable through Identity manipulation, but I'm starting to doubt it somewhat. 

Any thoughts? I'd love to update this with ideas and information others can bring in 

Let's explore some extremes for a thought experiment:

Consider: Identity naturally and gradually evolves and changes over time, this is established in the Cosmere as a hard fact for sapient creatures. Capturing and recording a manipulation of Identity via Forgery requires persistent updates or a built in self correction and calibration method to allow an assumed Identity to continue being viable (which is shown to require a world-leading master of the art to perform using the methods shown thus far on page).

 

Question: can a feruchemist child store a memory in a coppermind and retireve it when they are 100 years old if they still possess it? Let's assume that they don't even have awareness of its contents, only vague knowledge that they stored something. Is it possible for an individual's Identity to change, evolve, or become damaged so much over a lifetime that any bonded metalminds, shardblades, honorblades, dawnshards, Breath, ect. No longer recognize them? From what I have observed, I would assert: no, almost certainly not. This would imply that spiritual keying is, in some sense, far deeper, and technically independent of, whatever it is inside a soul that makes a sapient creature feel and behave as themselves.

Posit: damage done to the singers is widely theorized to be due to artificial damage to their spiritwebs, primarily in the forms of targeted damage to their Identity and Connection sectors. Question: would a singer blessed with the power of feruchemy be able to accidentally revert and trap themselves in slaveform by simply storing Identity and Connection? Again, I would assert, almost certainly not. Would a "human" feruchemist blank out their sapience by performing this same feat? Dear lord I hope not, or those southern scadrians seriously have a civil war coming at them for what they've done to themselves...