Identity

Identity is the multiple roles that can be occupied by a single agent, each role having a different level of attraction.

• Living things act to preserve their identity.
• Sometimes, preserving this identity may mean swiftly changing.
• But as evolutionary biologists Maturana and Varela pointed out, when you disturb a living thing, it usually acts to remove the source of the disturbance. 
• 3 I’s: Humans are not Ants nor Boids

[Margaret Wheatley]

The first act of life is to create a boundary, a membrane that is the cell's identity. It defines an inside and an outside, what it is, what it is not.