@existential potential,
"Identity" is indeed problematic ! Generally it involves "group allegiance", but the group tends to become"the whole" from the transcendental perspective.
Since the OP was specifically referenced to Gurdjieff concepts, we might start with his answer, which would be that "the sleeping self" (the norm) has
no fixed identity. Such an assumption is an illusion of the sleep-walker. The Gurdjieff position is that the "higher self" is the only one with a chance of claiming "an identity" by allegience with "the absolute". We can then contrast this view with that of "self dissipation" perhaps suggested by relinquishment of "worldly attachments", in which "identity" becomes irrelevent.
But there is at least a third view...that of "the embodied self" as advocated by Heideggar (
et al). According to this view "the self" is not normally "conscious of itself"...it is situationally
evoked when the "flow of being" is interrupted. ...where there was merely "a hammering". on the striking of a finger, "the hammer" becomes objectified by "the self as actor" which takes on take on
Existenz. For Heidegger, the "authentic self" is the existential
contemplater of the
being of itself. In this sense it is transcendental and
free to choose "its identity".
