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Cyberspace

Cyberspace is a (virtual) reality within the world's computers and computer networks. Cyberspace is a common theme in science fiction.

The word "cyberspace" (a portmanteau of cybernetics and space) was coined by William Gibson, the Canadian science fiction writer, in 1982 in his novelette "Burning Chrome" in Omni magazine and was subsequently popularized in his novel Neuromancer.

While cyberspace should not be confused with the real Internet, the term is often used simply to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the computing 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". This becomes a reasonable viewpoint once distributed services (e.g. Freenet) become widespread, and the physical identity and location of the participants become impossible to determine due to anonymous or pseudonymous communication. The laws of any particular nation state would therefore not apply.

The show Digimon is set in a version of cyberspace 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 actually enter this world instead of just being on a computer.

In the movie Tron, a programmer was transferred to the program world, where programs were personalities, resembling the forms of their creators.

The idea of "the matrix" in movie The Matrix resembles a complex form of cyberspace.

"Meatspace" is a term coined later as an opposite of "cyberspace".

See also

External links

  • A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html by John Perry Barlow
  • Sex, Religion and Cyberspace http://www.thiemeworks.com/islands/aug/sexrnc.html by Richard Thieme


Last updated: 02-07-2005 08:52:28
Last updated: 05-03-2005 09:00:33