Wednesday, April 8, 2009

streamlining my name, and the thought puzzles involved

*warning this post wanders*

So today I am streamlining my everything online. I am moving every user name/ url/ public profile name to mikemorgan19. The goal of this is to simplify the process for having people finding me should they for some reason feel compelled to find this particular Mike Morgan (there are several Mike Morgans in the world). The process of changing all of my online names to mikemorgan19 begs a somewhat sizable philosophical question about the internet.

At what point does your internet persona become your real life persona?

Does the fact that I am most easily accessible by mikemorgan19 make my name mikemorgan19 insted of just simply mike, or morgan as more and more people seem to call me? In the future will people be named things that is unique to them and them alone, (such as a number or unpronounceable symbol, eg Prince) and this will be used for all means of identification.

What event makes someone's name official? (apart from the legal birth cirtificate). In Irish mythology the druid Cathbad declared Sentanta to be the "Hound of Culainn" and was from then on known as CuChulainn. If the Tain can be used as a framework for naming things then is it necessary to have Druids running around every time someone wants to rename something? Furthermore where will we find these Druids, they arn't exactly a dime a dozen anymore.

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