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:''For the song by AC/DC, see Cyberspace (song).''
'Cyberspace' is a term used to define the virtual world, built entirely of computers and computer networks around the globe. The term originates in science fiction, where it also includes various kinds of virtual reality experienced by deeply immersed computer users or by entities who actually inhere inside computer systems.
The word "cyberspace" (from ''cybernetics'' and ''space'') was coined by science fiction novelist and seminal cyberpunk author William Gibson in his 1982 story "Burning Chrome" and popularized by his 1984 novel ''Neuromancer.''[1] The portion of ''Neuromancer'' cited in this respect is usually the following:
:''Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding'', (69).
Gibson later commented on the origin of the term in the 1996 documentary ''No Maps for These Territories'':
:''All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.''
Gibson also coined the phrase ''Meatspace'' for the physical world contrasted with ''Cyberspace.''
The term ''Cyberspace'' started to become a ''de facto'' synonym for the ''Internet,'' and later the ''World Wide Web,'' during the 1990s, especially in academic circles[2] and activist communities. Author Bruce Sterling, who popularized this meaning,[3] credits John Perry Barlow as the first to use it to refer to ''"the present-day nexus of computer and telecommunications networks."'' Barlow describes it thus in his essay to announce the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (note the spatial metaphor) in June, 1990:[4]
As Barlow, and the EFF, continued public education efforts to promote the idea of "digital rights," the term was increasingly used during the Internet boom of the late 1990s.
While cyberspace should not be confused with the real Internet, the term is often used to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a web site, for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace." According to this interpretation, events taking place on the Internet are not therefore happening in the countries where the participants or the servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace".
The "space" in cyberspace has more in common with the abstract, mathematical meanings of the term (see Space) than physical space. It does not have the duality of positive and negative volume (while in physical space for example a room has the negative volume of usable space delineated by positive volume of walls, Internet users cannot enter the screen and explore the unknown part of the Net as an extension of the space they're in), but spatial meaning can be attributed to the relationship between different pages (of books as well as webservers), considering the unturned pages to be somewhere "out there." The concept of cyberspace therefore refers not to the content being presented to the surfer, but rather to the possibility of surfing among different sites, with feedback loops between the user and the rest of the system creating the potential to always encounter something unknown or unexpected.
Videogames differ from text-based communication in that on-screen images are meant to be figures that actually occupy a space and the animation shows the movement of those figures. Images are supposed to form the positive volume that delineates the empty space. A game adopts the cyberspace metaphor by engaging more players in the game, and then figuratively representing them on the screen as avatars. Games do not have to stop at the avatar-player level, but current implementations aiming for more immersive playing space (i.e. Laser tag) take the form of augmented reality rather than cyberspace, fully immersive virtual realities remaining impractical.
Although the more radical consequences of the global communication network predicted by some cyberspace proponents (i.e. the diminishing of state influence envisioned by John Perry Barlow[5]) failed to materialize and the word lost some of its novelty appeal, it remains current as of 2006.[6][7]
Some virtual communities explicitly refer to the concept of cyberspace, e.g. Linden Lab calling their customers "Residents" of Second Life, while all such communities can be positioned "in cyberspace" for explanatory and comparative purposes (as Sterling did in The Hacker Crackdown and many journalists afterwards), integrating the metaphor into a wider cyber-culture.
Before cyberspace became a technological possibility, many philosophers
suggested the possibility of a virtual reality similar to cyberspace. In The
Republic, Plato sets out his allegory of
the cave, widely cited as one of the first conceptual realities. He suggests
that we are already in a form of virtual reality which we are deceived into
thinking is true. True reality for Plato is only accessible through mental
training and is the reality of the forms. These ideas are central to
Platonism and neoplatonism.
Another forerunner of the modern ideas
of cyberspace is Descartes' thought
that people might be deceived by an evil demon which feeds them a false
reality. This argument is the direct predecessor of the modern ideas of
brain in a vat and many popular conceptions of cyberspace take Descartes'
ideas as their starting point.
Visual arts have a tradition, stretching back to
antiquity, of artefacts meant to fool the eye and be
mistaken for reality. This questioning of reality occasionally led some
philosophers and (especially) theologians to distrust art as deceiving people
into entering a world which was not real (see Aniconism). The artistic
challenge was resurrected with increasing ambition as art became more and more
realistic with the invention of photography, film (see Arrival of a Train at a Station) and finally immersive
computer simulations.
American counterculture exponents like William S. Burroughs (whose literary influence on Gibson and cyberpunk in general is widely acknowledged[8][9]) and Timothy Leary[10] were among the first to extoll the potential of computers and computer networks for individual empowerment.[11]
Some contemporary philosophers and scientists (i.e. David Deutsch in ''The Fabric of Reality'') employ virtual reality in various thought experiments. For example Philip Zhai in ''Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality'' connects cyberspace to the platonic tradition:
:''Let us imagine a nation in which everyone is hooked up to a network of VR infrastructure. They have been so hooked up since they left their mother's wombs. Immersed in cyberspace and maintaining their life by teleoperation, they have never imagined that life could be any different from that. The first person that thinks of the possibility of an alternative world like ours would be ridiculed by the majority of these citizens, just like the few enlightened ones in Plato's allegory of the cave.''
Note that this brain-in-a-vat argument conflates cyberspace with reality, while the more common descriptions of cyberspace contrast it with the "real world".
''Main article:'' New media art
Having originated among writers, the concept of cyberspace remains most popular in literature and film. Although artists working with other media have expressed some interest in the concept, "cyberspace" in modern art is mostly used as a synonym for "virtual reality" and remains more discussed than enacted.[12]
★ In the math mystery cartoon ''Cyberchase,'' the action takes place in Cyberspace, managed by the benevolent ruler, Motherboard. It is used as a conceit to allow storylines to take place in virtual worlds -- "Cybersites" -- on any theme and where specific math concepts can be best explored.
★ The anime ''Digimon'' is set in a variant of the cyberspace concept called the "Digital World". The Digital World is a parallel universe made up of data from the Internet. Similar to cyberspace, except that people could physically enter this world instead of merely using a computer.
★ In the computer game ''System Shock'', the player can use a neural implant to "jack in" to cyberspace terminals, where they can collect data, fight security programs and trigger certain events in the real world, such as unlocking doors.
★ In the movie ''Tron'', a programmer was physically transferred to the program world, where programs were personalities, resembling the forms of their creators.
★ The idea of "the matrix" in the movie ''The Matrix'' resembles a complex form of cyberspace where people are "jacked in" from birth and do not know that the reality they experience is virtual.
★ In the EXE series of MegaMan, there is a place where A.I. programs called NetNavis can "jack in" to Cyberspace from about any electrical appliance.
★ In the Japanese anime series ''Lain'', the main character begins to learn of a new dimension of reality taking place in cyberspace.
★ Irregular Webcomic!'s Space theme frequently involves the characters going into Cyberspace.
★ In the Xenosaga video game series on the PlayStation 2, there is virtual reality called the U.M.N. ("Unus mundus network") that uses the human collective unconscious as an interstellar, cyberspace network. It is similar to the matrix mentioned above, but also facilitates hyperspace travel for spacecraft and can create a virtual reality representation of human memories.
★ In the Ghost in the Shell fictional universe, there is an extrapolation of the Internet (called "The Net") which a large section of society seems to be able to access. The interface can range from simply visual (through conventional displays or implants) to full-sensory immersion via neural jacks, where (as in William Gibson's Cyberspace) data is shown as visual constructs such as objects that present servers or databases, with graphical depictions of security mechanisms and information stores. Entering and/or traveling The Net is referred to as "net diving", which is an activity with the potential to be physically dangerous.
★ In the video game ''Shadow the Hedgehog'', two cyberspace levels were made: Digital Circuit and Mad Matrix.
★ In the Game Boy Advance game ''Sonic Advance 3'', the sixth zone "Cyber Track" is set in cyberspace.
★ Cyber law
★ Cyber-warfare
★ Cybersex
★ Cyberzine
★ Cipherspace
★ Crypto-anarchism
★ Digital pet
★ Electronic sports
★ Information highway
★ Infosphere
★ Internet art
★ Metaverse
★ Noosphere
★ Simulation
★ Social software
★ Telepresence
★ Virtual world
1. ''Po-Mo SF'' "William Gibson's Neuromancer and Post-Modern Science Fiction"
2. Vanderbilt University, ''"Postmodernism and the Culture of Cyberspace"'', Fall 1996 course syllabus
3. ''Principia Cybernetica'' "Cyberspace"
4. John Perry Barlow, ''"Crime and Puzzlement,"'' June 8, 1990
5. John Perry Barlow, ''"A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,"'' February 8, 1996
6. White House, ''"The National Strategy To Secure Cyberspace"''
7. ''FindLaw Legal News'' site, Tech and IP: Cyberspace section, retrieved November 14, 2006.
8. Alexander Laurence, An Interview with John Shirley, 1994
9. "Burroughs/Gysin/Throbbing Gristle", retrieved December 31, 2006
10. "Internet will be the LSD of the 90's", quoted by an on-line biography
11. Douglas Rushkoff, "Godfathers of Cyberspace"
12. Eduardo Kac, ''"Telepresence Art"''
★ Gibson, William. ''Neuromancer:20th Anniversary Edition''. New York:Ace Books, 2004.
★ Cross Talk: Is Cyberspace Really a Space?, , Jon, Ippolito, Artbyte, December 1998 – January 1999
★ Irvine, Martin. "Postmodern Science Fiction and Cyberpunk", retrieved 2006-07-19.
★ Sterling, Bruce. ''The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder On the Electronic Frontier.'' Spectra Books, 1992.
★ Zhai, Philip. ''Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality''. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
★ A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow
★ Virtual Reality Photos, Austria by Johann Steininger
★ Peculiarities of Cyberspace by Albert Benschop
★ Sex, Religion and Cyberspace by Richard Thieme
★ Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality by Philip Zhai
★ Brains in a vat philosophical argument against the idea that we could be in cyberspace and not know it by Hilary Putnam
★ U.S. Air Force prepares to fight in cyberspace
★ DOD - Cyberspace
'Cyberspace' is a term used to define the virtual world, built entirely of computers and computer networks around the globe. The term originates in science fiction, where it also includes various kinds of virtual reality experienced by deeply immersed computer users or by entities who actually inhere inside computer systems.
Cyberspace is like the white triangle in the above image, appearing virtually, existing nowhere, while joining computers across the globe
Origins of the term
The word "cyberspace" (from ''cybernetics'' and ''space'') was coined by science fiction novelist and seminal cyberpunk author William Gibson in his 1982 story "Burning Chrome" and popularized by his 1984 novel ''Neuromancer.''[1] The portion of ''Neuromancer'' cited in this respect is usually the following:
:''Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding'', (69).
Gibson later commented on the origin of the term in the 1996 documentary ''No Maps for These Territories'':
:''All I knew about the word "cyberspace" when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page.''
Gibson also coined the phrase ''Meatspace'' for the physical world contrasted with ''Cyberspace.''
Metaphorical
The term ''Cyberspace'' started to become a ''de facto'' synonym for the ''Internet,'' and later the ''World Wide Web,'' during the 1990s, especially in academic circles[2] and activist communities. Author Bruce Sterling, who popularized this meaning,[3] credits John Perry Barlow as the first to use it to refer to ''"the present-day nexus of computer and telecommunications networks."'' Barlow describes it thus in his essay to announce the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (note the spatial metaphor) in June, 1990:[4]
As Barlow, and the EFF, continued public education efforts to promote the idea of "digital rights," the term was increasingly used during the Internet boom of the late 1990s.
Cyberspace as an Internet metaphor
While cyberspace should not be confused with the real Internet, the term is often used to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a web site, for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace." According to this interpretation, events taking place on the Internet are not therefore happening in the countries where the participants or the servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace".
The "space" in cyberspace has more in common with the abstract, mathematical meanings of the term (see Space) than physical space. It does not have the duality of positive and negative volume (while in physical space for example a room has the negative volume of usable space delineated by positive volume of walls, Internet users cannot enter the screen and explore the unknown part of the Net as an extension of the space they're in), but spatial meaning can be attributed to the relationship between different pages (of books as well as webservers), considering the unturned pages to be somewhere "out there." The concept of cyberspace therefore refers not to the content being presented to the surfer, but rather to the possibility of surfing among different sites, with feedback loops between the user and the rest of the system creating the potential to always encounter something unknown or unexpected.
Videogames differ from text-based communication in that on-screen images are meant to be figures that actually occupy a space and the animation shows the movement of those figures. Images are supposed to form the positive volume that delineates the empty space. A game adopts the cyberspace metaphor by engaging more players in the game, and then figuratively representing them on the screen as avatars. Games do not have to stop at the avatar-player level, but current implementations aiming for more immersive playing space (i.e. Laser tag) take the form of augmented reality rather than cyberspace, fully immersive virtual realities remaining impractical.
Although the more radical consequences of the global communication network predicted by some cyberspace proponents (i.e. the diminishing of state influence envisioned by John Perry Barlow[5]) failed to materialize and the word lost some of its novelty appeal, it remains current as of 2006.[6][7]
Some virtual communities explicitly refer to the concept of cyberspace, e.g. Linden Lab calling their customers "Residents" of Second Life, while all such communities can be positioned "in cyberspace" for explanatory and comparative purposes (as Sterling did in The Hacker Crackdown and many journalists afterwards), integrating the metaphor into a wider cyber-culture.
Alternate realities in philosophy and art
Predating computers
Before cyberspace became a technological possibility, many philosophers
suggested the possibility of a virtual reality similar to cyberspace. In The
Republic, Plato sets out his allegory of
the cave, widely cited as one of the first conceptual realities. He suggests
that we are already in a form of virtual reality which we are deceived into
thinking is true. True reality for Plato is only accessible through mental
training and is the reality of the forms. These ideas are central to
Platonism and neoplatonism.
Another forerunner of the modern ideas
of cyberspace is Descartes' thought
that people might be deceived by an evil demon which feeds them a false
reality. This argument is the direct predecessor of the modern ideas of
brain in a vat and many popular conceptions of cyberspace take Descartes'
ideas as their starting point.
Visual arts have a tradition, stretching back to
antiquity, of artefacts meant to fool the eye and be
mistaken for reality. This questioning of reality occasionally led some
philosophers and (especially) theologians to distrust art as deceiving people
into entering a world which was not real (see Aniconism). The artistic
challenge was resurrected with increasing ambition as art became more and more
realistic with the invention of photography, film (see Arrival of a Train at a Station) and finally immersive
computer simulations.
Influenced by computers
Philosophy
American counterculture exponents like William S. Burroughs (whose literary influence on Gibson and cyberpunk in general is widely acknowledged[8][9]) and Timothy Leary[10] were among the first to extoll the potential of computers and computer networks for individual empowerment.[11]
Some contemporary philosophers and scientists (i.e. David Deutsch in ''The Fabric of Reality'') employ virtual reality in various thought experiments. For example Philip Zhai in ''Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality'' connects cyberspace to the platonic tradition:
:''Let us imagine a nation in which everyone is hooked up to a network of VR infrastructure. They have been so hooked up since they left their mother's wombs. Immersed in cyberspace and maintaining their life by teleoperation, they have never imagined that life could be any different from that. The first person that thinks of the possibility of an alternative world like ours would be ridiculed by the majority of these citizens, just like the few enlightened ones in Plato's allegory of the cave.''
Note that this brain-in-a-vat argument conflates cyberspace with reality, while the more common descriptions of cyberspace contrast it with the "real world".
Art
''Main article:'' New media art
Having originated among writers, the concept of cyberspace remains most popular in literature and film. Although artists working with other media have expressed some interest in the concept, "cyberspace" in modern art is mostly used as a synonym for "virtual reality" and remains more discussed than enacted.[12]
Popular culture examples
★ In the math mystery cartoon ''Cyberchase,'' the action takes place in Cyberspace, managed by the benevolent ruler, Motherboard. It is used as a conceit to allow storylines to take place in virtual worlds -- "Cybersites" -- on any theme and where specific math concepts can be best explored.
★ The anime ''Digimon'' is set in a variant of the cyberspace concept called the "Digital World". The Digital World is a parallel universe made up of data from the Internet. Similar to cyberspace, except that people could physically enter this world instead of merely using a computer.
★ In the computer game ''System Shock'', the player can use a neural implant to "jack in" to cyberspace terminals, where they can collect data, fight security programs and trigger certain events in the real world, such as unlocking doors.
★ In the movie ''Tron'', a programmer was physically transferred to the program world, where programs were personalities, resembling the forms of their creators.
★ The idea of "the matrix" in the movie ''The Matrix'' resembles a complex form of cyberspace where people are "jacked in" from birth and do not know that the reality they experience is virtual.
★ In the EXE series of MegaMan, there is a place where A.I. programs called NetNavis can "jack in" to Cyberspace from about any electrical appliance.
★ In the Japanese anime series ''Lain'', the main character begins to learn of a new dimension of reality taking place in cyberspace.
★ Irregular Webcomic!'s Space theme frequently involves the characters going into Cyberspace.
★ In the Xenosaga video game series on the PlayStation 2, there is virtual reality called the U.M.N. ("Unus mundus network") that uses the human collective unconscious as an interstellar, cyberspace network. It is similar to the matrix mentioned above, but also facilitates hyperspace travel for spacecraft and can create a virtual reality representation of human memories.
★ In the Ghost in the Shell fictional universe, there is an extrapolation of the Internet (called "The Net") which a large section of society seems to be able to access. The interface can range from simply visual (through conventional displays or implants) to full-sensory immersion via neural jacks, where (as in William Gibson's Cyberspace) data is shown as visual constructs such as objects that present servers or databases, with graphical depictions of security mechanisms and information stores. Entering and/or traveling The Net is referred to as "net diving", which is an activity with the potential to be physically dangerous.
★ In the video game ''Shadow the Hedgehog'', two cyberspace levels were made: Digital Circuit and Mad Matrix.
★ In the Game Boy Advance game ''Sonic Advance 3'', the sixth zone "Cyber Track" is set in cyberspace.
See also
★ Cyber law
★ Cyber-warfare
★ Cybersex
★ Cyberzine
★ Cipherspace
★ Crypto-anarchism
★ Digital pet
★ Electronic sports
★ Information highway
★ Infosphere
★ Internet art
★ Metaverse
★ Noosphere
★ Simulation
★ Social software
★ Telepresence
★ Virtual world
Notes
1. ''Po-Mo SF'' "William Gibson's Neuromancer and Post-Modern Science Fiction"
2. Vanderbilt University, ''"Postmodernism and the Culture of Cyberspace"'', Fall 1996 course syllabus
3. ''Principia Cybernetica'' "Cyberspace"
4. John Perry Barlow, ''"Crime and Puzzlement,"'' June 8, 1990
5. John Perry Barlow, ''"A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,"'' February 8, 1996
6. White House, ''"The National Strategy To Secure Cyberspace"''
7. ''FindLaw Legal News'' site, Tech and IP: Cyberspace section, retrieved November 14, 2006.
8. Alexander Laurence, An Interview with John Shirley, 1994
9. "Burroughs/Gysin/Throbbing Gristle", retrieved December 31, 2006
10. "Internet will be the LSD of the 90's", quoted by an on-line biography
11. Douglas Rushkoff, "Godfathers of Cyberspace"
12. Eduardo Kac, ''"Telepresence Art"''
References
★ Gibson, William. ''Neuromancer:20th Anniversary Edition''. New York:Ace Books, 2004.
★ Cross Talk: Is Cyberspace Really a Space?, , Jon, Ippolito, Artbyte, December 1998 – January 1999
★ Irvine, Martin. "Postmodern Science Fiction and Cyberpunk", retrieved 2006-07-19.
★ Sterling, Bruce. ''The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder On the Electronic Frontier.'' Spectra Books, 1992.
★ Zhai, Philip. ''Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality''. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
External links
★ A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow
★ Virtual Reality Photos, Austria by Johann Steininger
★ Peculiarities of Cyberspace by Albert Benschop
★ Sex, Religion and Cyberspace by Richard Thieme
★ Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality by Philip Zhai
★ Brains in a vat philosophical argument against the idea that we could be in cyberspace and not know it by Hilary Putnam
★ U.S. Air Force prepares to fight in cyberspace
★ DOD - Cyberspace
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