Cladists are a social construct, an identity which may be shared by many identical instances on the System. The differences between one cladist and another are usually things such as their names, memories, and relationships. When an instance forks, they remain of the same cladist until they eventually individuate and become an entirely new cladist.
A cladist is distinguished from a clade in that they are themselves of a clade, just as an instance is of a cladist; that is, a clade may be composed of many cladists, who are each in turn represented by many instances. Many on the System call themselves cladists as a demonym, defining themselves as distinguished from those who live phys-side by the distributed identity afforded by their ability to fork.
This article is a stub. You can help us by expanding it.