Cyberspace: First Steps

I was very impressed with this essay and how Benedikt truly understood where we were headed in technology. As an older student I have experienced life in a world without knowing or even thinking about a virtual world. That was truly science fiction in my time as a kid. I found that when I read all of the definitions on cyberspace in Benedikt’s essay all of them have merit, however, number 3, 6, and 9 seemed to be the closest to how I would define cyberspace.

“The tablet become a page become a screen become a world, a virtual world. Everywhere and nowhere, a place where nothing is forgotten and yet everything changes.”
This one shows the progression of time and technology where we started in a physical realm moving towards a virtual realm. It shows the vastness of the virtual realm. We can be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It boggles my mind when I think about how vast our world has become and how quickly it has occurred.

“Through its myriad, unblinking video eyes, distant places and faces, real or unreal, actual or long gone, can be summoned to presence. From vast databases that constitute the culture’s deposited wealth, every document is available, every recording is playable, and every picture is viewable. Around every participant, this: a laboratory, and instrumented bridge; taking no space, a home presiding over a world, and a dog under the table.”
In class we talked about the differences in freedom that countries experience as to whether the information they can access is filtered or allowed to flow freely. If cyberspace was allowed to be accessed equally and freely from all people on this earth we would then have access to every recording, picture, and document. I have to admit I was not sure what was meant by the dog under the table but I still liked this definition.

The last one we read out loud in class and when you think of the realm of pure information I think about it in the terms of 0,1’s or binary which is in essence pure information. It is when we start to interpret this information that it is no longer pure. The process of interpretation adds our own preconceived notions, ideals, and experiences which taints the information we are viewing. I think that is why I liked this definition, it touched upon the physical world very vividly and I could visualize how messy and crowded our physical world has become. With cyberspace it is limitless without bounds like infinity.