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What? Is it part of your 'true identity', for instance, the value of the wavefunction (ik that's not really how that works) at each planck volume of your body - 65 liters times (planck's constant 1 / 1.616255×10⁻³⁵ m) ^ 3 (that's ... a lot of values, 10^100 float32s)! Except you specified 'assocations' - those have something to do with the outside world, so do we need to include, say, the volume of the earth, too? How do you distill all those atoms down into an 'objective list'? (the problem of knowledge-as-a-list-of-facts is extensively discussed by western philosophy, and is at any rate mostly nonsensical - which facts?). And - there isn't really anything else in the sense of 'qualities' or 'lists' ("materialism" is separate - if people have souls or experiences distinct from atoms somehow, it isn't a static list of associations and experiences). So I don't think this really means anything. Anyway, "true identity" here just seems to mean ... physically everything, every fact or idea that could possibly exist in the universe in total. If you're a physicist, and you're 20, and at age 40 you discover general relativity ... i guess that's part of your true identity? It's an association, after all.
Do they, though? Let's say you're about to eat a new kind of meat. You don't know, in one sense, that the meat is gonna taste good - yet in another sense, the potential to know it (i.e. the configuration of taste buds, experiences, etc to taste it) is already there. Is that part of your identity yet? And - does it even make sense to say that every association and quality is an 'identity'? I probably had some kind of cereal for breakfast 5723 days ago. Is that part of my identity? It is part of my 'experiences, associations'. This can't really be what we mean. Similarly, the fact that my 'perspective on' eating that cereal is 'flawed', in that I don't remember it - seems fine? And since an 'identity' covers ... every relation and association I have, is it an "imperfection in my self-conception" that I can't quite prove a particularly complicated theorem without looking in a textbook right now, despite doing it before? ... I don't think 'self-conception' or 'identity' really mean anything at all. Anything that are either of them are just complex relations people have to things that exist, that they're trying to understand or accomplish, and have precisely as much to do with a 'self' or 'identity' with what I had for breakfast today.
What exactly is aggregating them? If Joe thinks i'm an evil fascist nazi and Tom thinks i'm cute and valid, what precisely is my social identity?
In order to have any sort of productive conversation, it's important to have agreed-upon definitions of key terms. That was the point of what I wrote. You've stated repeatedly that you "don't think [various terms] really mean anything at all." In that case, we can't have a productive conversation.
That's ... not true at all.
How is a christian supposed to have a discussion with an atheist? One defines "God" to mean "The all-whole, loving being who created us and saves us from depravity." The other objects: "what? I don't agree with that".
So, I disagree that 'identity' and 'self' have any particular meaning or relevance in the first place, and am arguing for that. That has to be ... possible.
If the conversation is about "what is the nature of God?" then yes, there is no conversation to be had.
In this context, we are discussing the nuances of "identity." Breaking in on that conversation with the claim that "the central point of debate doesn't exist" is undermining conversation, not contributing.
Well, if I'm obviously wrong, or not making a coherent point, then it's not contributing, and that's plausible.
But ... there is no 'nature of god' in any literal sense, and any conversation about such would be greatly improved by such an interjection.
As an analogy: when I was younger I, like everyone else I knew, was against anti-black racism, prejudice, implicit bias, etc. In a conversation about how best to prevent police racism - an interjection that 'no, the police aren't racist' was useful!
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