The "They" is a term used by Heidegger to denote the other instances of Dasein that exist within the world of any particular Dasein in question. In an everyday sense, one may read this to mean other people. The Philosopher uses his term to reflect both the everyday terminology of our language, "They say that...", but also to not explicitly identify humans as this subject. In fact all aspects of this theory can be read and applied in these two fashions; either directly applied to our world, or in a more empirical way applied to a general case. There is no need for these procedures to be enacted within the genetic construct that is our minds, nor on this Earth, "our world". Everything could as easily be modeled within a computational system of sufficient power. That said, the richness of "our world", and the abundance of existing instances, the "They", would make this physical world the best place to create and raise a synthetic intelligence. Created 21st August 2008 Last revised 11th October 2008 |