Towards a shared understanding of ‘digital identity’ — reflecting on conversations with Doc Searls and Drummond Reed

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

First published to the generative identity website .

No two people can share an exact understanding of anything deep and meaningful simply because we each have different contexts. Conversation relies upon and can never wholly substitute for context. Nevertheless, we can work to grow a shared understanding through conversation, and the relationship between conversationalists evolves in the process.

The relationship is immanent in such informational exchange[1].

On one level, the opening paragraph here pertains to this being a blog post about conversations I’ve valued in recent months. But there’s another level given that ‘digital identity’ is our subject. Identity, in what you might call the natural and non-bureaucratic sense, is reciprocally defining and co-constitutive with relationships and information exchange[2].

Identities are immanent in the relationships immanent in information exchange.

Akasha-Foundation on Philip Sheldrake

Towards a shared understanding of ‘digital identity’ — reflecting on conversations with Doc Searls and Drummond Reed