Identity() versus Equals()

To expand on item 5 in my original entry, it seems that object oriented languages need to be extended to support the following notions.

• Identity() as a separate model-definable function rather than using a single "key" in the form of an object pointer or reference. It would define whether multiple "things" are the "same thing".
• Equals() is different than Identity() because objects being equal is not the same thing as "the thing this object represents" is the same as "the thing that object represents".
• Determining the membership of "object 123" in the "set of all instances of class X" could/should be via an explicit list (along with "says who?", "as of when?", etc) rather than an intrinsic property of that object.
• Class definitions are in the mind of the "viewer" and can be applied to any object. Therefore, one should be able to use a mixture of many ontologies.
• Attributes of objects should be stored independently so that they are available to all "views", "classes", "entity types", EAV tuples, etc, etc.