mundane, but there are a lot of groups with their individual identifiers that are administered in this same fashion: those who have been born (birth certificate), those who have been inoculated against childhood diseases (vaccination record), those who have graduated from high school (diploma), those who have graduated from college (another diploma), those who belong to a labor union (union card), those who have served in the armed forces (honorable or dishonorable discharge), those who have been accused of or convicted of a crime (criminal record), those who have permanent resident status (green card), and the list can go on and on. Such is the record of our life’s experiences and from this record we can derive some level of trust that goes toward the anticipation of outcome of future interactions. An issue arises when we consider how these various experiences are associated with an actual biophysical person. In other words, how is trust in experiential identity established?

The answer to this question lies with an alternative facet of identity. It derives from the approach used within the family, clan or tribe that can be extended to the entire species. Specifically, this facet of identity establishes the uniqueness of each person relative to all other members of the family, clan, tribe or the entire species. In fact, when considered in the abstract, we can indeed consider uniqueness of a single person relative to all persons who have ever lived or who will live in the future. This facet of identity we will call differential identity. A very basic definition of differential identity is: that characteristic of the members of a group of entities that allows them to be distinguished, one from the other, such that they can be counted. We suggest that this is the most basic facet of the concept of identity. To understand the seminal nature of this facet, let’s consider the pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum as it describes the manner in which a child is taught to count. We first have the child establish the set of things that need to be counted. Then, we teach the child the need to do two things: first, establish a one-to-one correspondence between each member of the set and the individual members of the set of numbers, and second, define a mechanism through which one can determine whether a particular member of the set has been counted or not. So, let’s look at an extremely simple example of what this means.

The positive integers comprise a set of entities that have inherent unique differential identities. Moreover, if we simply speak their names in sequence, we count them. Each name (number) we speak establishes the cardinality of the set, up to that point. Hence, we know how many names (numbers) we have thus far counted. We also know that numbers larger than that haven’t been counted yet. Now, if we want to count some other set of entities that don’t already have unique, sequential numeric identities built in to their very being, perhaps a box of apples, we must first establish a one-to-one correspondence between each member of the set and the members of the set of positive integers. So, we can begin to count a bunch of apples. This apple we’ll call one; the next apple is two; and, so on. Now, to actually establish the count of the complete box of apples, we have to define some mechanism through which we determine that a particular apple has been counted, and that finally all of the apples have been counted.

Let us initially assume we do not want to preserve the order in which we count the apples as a consequence of the counting interaction. That would constitute a forensic wake and our concerns with privacy suggest we don’t want to leave that interaction trail. Nor do we want to revisit a particular apple for more detailed analysis after we’ve completed the count. For example, we might have noted in passing that apple 23 looked like Thomas Jefferson when held up to the light. We might facetiously suggest that if it had appeared to be an image of a religious icon, then there might have been more interest in preserving the association or identification. However, the image of Thomas Jefferson we just consider to be a fleeting curiosity. In any case, under these conditions we can proceed with our count by just moving each apple from one box to another box as we count. The latter box has the apples already counted while the first box has the apples yet to be

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