The simplicity of identity

Identity seems uncomplicated: everything is identical to itself and to nothing else. Yet this formal simplicity has profound metaphysical implications. If identity is absolute and fundamental, applying uniformly across all domains, then its application to time leads to a radical reconception of our world. Through analysis of classical puzzles—from the Ship of Theseus to personal fission—this book develops a five-dimensional ontology called “pixelism,” treating spatial, temporal, and modal dimensions symmetrically. Like pixels on a screen, entities are instantaneous, atomic, and world-bound, connected only through counterpart relations. This yields a coherent view of persistence, composition, and modality—one with no persisting persons, no composite objects, no trans-world individuals, but only fundamental units: pixels configured chair-wise, person-wise, or universe-wise.