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{{Short description|Concept describing a widespread, interconnected digital technology}}
{{hatgrp|{{other uses}}
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[[File:Chongqing Nightscape.jpg|thumb|Nightscape in [[Chongqing]], China. Artificial landscapes and "city lights at night" were some of the first metaphors used by the genre for cyberspace (in ''[[Neuromancer]]'', by [[William Gibson]]).]]
{{Cyborg}}
'''Cyberspace''' is an interconnected [[digital electronics|digital]] environment.{{dubious|lede|date=June 2025}} It is a type of [[virtual world]]{{dubious|lede|date=June 2025}} popularized with the rise of the [[Internet]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Delfanti |first1=Alessandro |last2=Arvidsson |first2=Adam |title=Introduction to Digital Media |date=2019 |publisher=Wiley |page=150 |isbn=9781119276401 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=19t5DwAAQBAJ&q=An%20expression%20dating%20from%20the%20first%20decade%20of%20the%20diffusion%20of%20the%20internet.}}</ref> The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security professionals, governments, military and industry leaders and entrepreneurs to describe the domain of the global technology environment, commonly defined as standing for the global network of interdependent [[information technology]] infrastructures, [[telecommunications network]]s and [[computer]] processing systems. Others consider cyberspace to be just a notional environment in which communication over [[computer network]]s occurs.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/cyberspace | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130218185858/http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/cyberspace | url-status=dead | archive-date=February 18, 2013 | title=Cyberspace &#124; Definition of cyberspace in US English by Oxford Dictionaries}}</ref> The word became popular in the 1990s when the use of the Internet, networking, and digital communication were all growing dramatically; the term ''cyberspace'' was able to represent the many new ideas and phenomena that were emerging.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Strate |first=Lance |title=The varieties of cyberspace: Problems in definition and delimitation |journal=Western Journal of Communication |year=1999 |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=382–83 |doi=10.1080/10570319909374648}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Steiger|first1=Stefan|last2=Harnisch|first2=Sebastian|last3=Zettl|first3=Kerstin|last4=Lohmann|first4=Johannes|date=2018-01-02|title=Conceptualising conflicts in cyberspace|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/23738871.2018.1453526|journal=Journal of Cyber Policy|volume=3|issue=1|pages=77–95|doi=10.1080/23738871.2018.1453526|issn=2373-8871|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
As a social experience, individuals can interact, exchange ideas, share information, provide social support, conduct business, direct actions, create artistic media, play games, engage in political discussion, and so on, using this global network. Cyberspace users are sometimes referred to as "'''cybernauts'''". 

The term ''cyberspace'' has become a conventional means to describe anything associated with general [[computing]], the [[Internet]] and the diverse [[Cyberculture|Internet culture]]. The U.S. government recognizes the interdependent network of [[IT infrastructure|information technology infrastructures]] and [[cyber-physical systems]] operating across this medium as part of the US national [[critical infrastructure]].<ref>{{cite act |title=National Security Memorandum/NSM-22 |url=https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/04/30/national-security-memorandum-on-critical-infrastructure-security-and-resilience/ |date=April 30, 2024 |publisher=White House}}</ref> Amongst individuals on cyberspace, there is believed to be a code of shared rules and ethics mutually beneficial for all to follow, referred to as [[cyberethics]]. Many view the [[right to privacy]] as most important to a functional code of cyberethics.<ref name="cyberethics">Richard A. Spinello, [https://books.google.com/books?id=mE8NEL5JdmAC&dq=cyberethics&pg=PP2 ''"Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace"'']</ref>  Such moral responsibilities go hand in hand when working online with global networks, specifically when opinions are involved with online social experiences.<ref name="georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov">{{cite web|title=The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace|url=https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/cyberspace_strategy.pdf|publisher=[[Department of Homeland Security]]| date=February 2003|access-date=19 January 2024| url-status=live| archive-date=30 August 2017| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170830182822/https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/pcipb}}</ref>

According to [[Chip Morningstar]] and [[F. Randall Farmer]], cyberspace is defined more by the social interactions involved rather than its technical implementation.<ref>Morningstar, Chip and F. Randall Farmer. The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat. ''The New Media Reader''. Ed. Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort: The MIT Press, 2003. 664-667. Print</ref> In their view, the computational medium in cyberspace is an augmentation of the communication channel between real people; the core characteristic of cyberspace is that it offers an environment that consists of many participants with the ability to affect and influence each other. They derive this concept from the observation that people seek richness, complexity, and depth within a virtual world.

==Etymology==

The term ''cyberspace'' first appeared in the visual arts in the late 1960s, when Danish artist [[Susanne Ussing]] (1940–1998) and her partner architect Carsten Hoff (b. 1934) constituted themselves as Atelier Cyberspace. Under this name the two made a series of installations and images entitled "sensory spaces" that were based on the principle of open systems adaptable to various influences, such as human movement and the behaviour of new materials.<ref name="kunstkritikk.com">{{cite web | url=http://www.kunstkritikk.com/kommentar/the-reinvention-of-cyberspace/ | title=The (Re)invention of Cyberspace | access-date=2015-08-24 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150826204717/http://www.kunstkritikk.com/kommentar/the-reinvention-of-cyberspace/ | archive-date=2015-08-26 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Atelier Cyberspace worked at a time when the Internet did not exist and computers were more or less off-limit to artists and creative engagement. In a 2015 interview with Scandinavian art magazine ''Kunstkritikk'', Carsten Hoff recollects that although Atelier Cyberspace did try to implement computers, they had no interest in the virtual space as such:<ref name="kunstkritikk.com"/>

{{Blockquote|To us, "cyberspace" was simply about managing spaces. There was nothing esoteric about it. Nothing digital, either. It was just a tool. The space was concrete, physical.}}

In the same interview, Hoff continues:

{{blockquote|Our shared point of departure was that we were working with physical settings, and we were both frustrated and displeased with the architecture from the period, particularly when it came to spaces for living. We felt that there was a need to loosen up the rigid confines of urban planning, giving back the gift of creativity to individual human beings and allowing them to shape and design their houses or dwellings themselves – instead of having some clever architect pop up, telling you how you should live. We were thinking in terms of open-ended systems where things could grow and evolve as required.

For instance, we imagined a kind of mobile production unit, but unfortunately the drawings have been lost. It was a kind of truck with a nozzle at the back. Like a bee building its hive. The nozzle would emit and apply material that grew to form amorphous mushrooms or whatever you might imagine. It was supposed to be computer-controlled, allowing you to create interesting shapes and sequences of spaces. It was a merging of organic and technological systems, a new way of structuring the world. And a response that counteracted industrial uniformity. We had this idea that sophisticated software might enable us to mimic the way in which nature creates products – where things that belong to the same family can take different forms. All oak trees are oak trees, but no two oak trees are exactly alike. And then a whole new material – polystyrene foam – arrived on the scene. It behaved like nature in the sense that it grew when its two component parts were mixed. Almost like a fungal growth. This made it an obvious choice for our work in Atelier Cyberspace.}}

The works of Atelier Cyberspace were originally shown at a number of Copenhagen venues and have later been exhibited at The National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen as part of the exhibition "What's Happening?"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.smk.dk/en/visit-the-museum/exhibitions/whats-happening/introduction-to-the-exhibition/ |title=Introduction to the exhibition - Statens Museum for Kunst |access-date=2015-08-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160717203022/http://www.smk.dk/en/visit-the-museum/exhibitions/whats-happening/introduction-to-the-exhibition/ |archive-date=2016-07-17 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The term ''cyberspace'' first appeared in fiction in the 1980s in the work of [[cyberpunk]] science fiction author [[William Gibson]], first in his 1982 short story "[[Burning Chrome]]" and later in his 1984 novel ''[[Neuromancer]]''.<ref name="wired">{{cite magazine |author=Thill |first=Scott |date=March 17, 2009 |title=March 17, 1948: William Gibson, Father of Cyberspace |url=https://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0317 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090318222544/https://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0317 |archive-date=March 18, 2009 |access-date=June 15, 2025 |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]}}</ref> In the next few years, the word became prominently identified with online computer networks. The portion of ''Neuromancer'' cited in this respect is usually the following:<ref>{{cite book | last = Gibson | first = William | title = Neuromancer | url = https://archive.org/details/neuromancer00gibs | url-access = registration | publisher = Ace Books | location = New York | year = 1984 | isbn = 978-0-441-56956-4 | page = [https://archive.org/details/neuromancer00gibs/page/69 69] }}</ref>

{{blockquote|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 the 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.}}

Now widely used, the term has since been criticized by Gibson, who commented on the origin of the term in the 2000 documentary ''[[No Maps for These Territories]]'':

{{blockquote|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.}}

===Metaphorical===
Don Slater uses a [[metaphor]] to define cyberspace, describing the "sense of a social setting that exists purely within a space of representation and communication ... it exists entirely within a computer space, distributed across increasingly complex and fluid networks." 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<ref>Vanderbilt University, [http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ans/english/clayton/sch295.htm "Postmodernism and the Culture of Cyberspace"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070107094002/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/Clayton/sch295.htm |date=2007-01-07 }}, Fall 1996 course syllabus</ref> and activist communities. Author [[Bruce Sterling]], who popularized this meaning,<ref>'' Principia Cybernetica'' [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSPACE.html "Cyberspace"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060821070628/http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CYBSPACE.html |date=2006-08-21 }}</ref> 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:<ref>John Perry Barlow, [http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/crime_and_puzzlement_1.html "Crime and Puzzlement,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120101093314/http://w2.eff.org/Misc/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/crime_and_puzzlement_1.html |date=2012-01-01 }} June 8, 1990</ref>

{{blockquote|In this silent world, all conversation is typed. To enter it, one forsakes both body and place and becomes a thing of words alone. You can see what your neighbors are saying (or recently said), but not what either they or their physical surroundings look like. Town meetings are continuous and discussions rage on everything from sexual kinks to depreciation schedules.

Whether by one telephonic tendril or millions, they are all connected to one another. Collectively, they form what their inhabitants call the Net. It extends across that immense region of electron states, microwaves, magnetic fields, light pulses and thought which sci-fi writer William Gibson named Cyberspace.|John Perry Barlow|"Crime and Puzzlement", 1990-06-08}}

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|Internet boom of the late 1990s]].

===Virtual environments===
Although in the present-day, loose use of the term ''cyberspace'' no longer implies or suggests immersion in a [[virtual reality]], current technology allows the integration of a number of capabilities (sensors, signals, connections, transmissions, processors, and controllers) sufficient to generate a [[Virtuality|virtual]] interactive experience that is accessible regardless of a geographic location. It is for these reasons cyberspace has been described as the ultimate [[tax haven]].<ref name="tsin">{{cite book |author1=William Rees-Mogg |author2=James Dale Davidson |author1-link=William Rees-Mogg |author2-link=James Dale Davidson |title=The Sovereign Individual |date=1997 |publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] |isbn=978-0684832722 |page=[https://archive.org/details/sovereignindivid00jame/page/8 8] |url=https://archive.org/details/sovereignindivid00jame/mode/2up |language=en}}</ref>

In 1989, [[Autodesk]], an American multinational corporation that focuses on 2D and 3D design software, developed a virtual design system called Cyberspace.<ref>Andrew Pollack, New York Times, [https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/10/business/for-artificial-reality-wear-a-computer.html "For Artificial Reality, Wear A Computer,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170313205951/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/10/business/for-artificial-reality-wear-a-computer.html |date=2017-03-13 }} April 10, 1989</ref>

===Recent definitions of Cyberspace===

Although several definitions of cyberspace can be found both in scientific literature and in official governmental sources, there is no fully agreed official definition yet. According to F. D. Kramer ,there are 28 different definitions of the term ''cyberspace''.<ref name=CNS_1>{{cite web| title=Cyberpower and National Security| author1=Kramer, F.D.| author2=Starr, S.H.| author3=Wentz, L.K.| url=https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Publications/Article/1216674/cyberpower-and-national-security| publisher=[[National Defense University Press]]| date=1 April 2009| access-date=19 January 2024}}</ref><ref name=IP_1>{{cite web| title=International Politics in the Digital Age: Power Diffusion or Power Concentration| author1=Mayer, M.| author2=De Scalzi, N.| author3=Martino, L.| author4=Chiarugi, I.| url=https://www.academia.edu/14336129| publisher=[[Academia]]| access-date=19 January 2024}}</ref>

The most recent draft definition is the following:

{{blockquote|Cyberspace is a global and dynamic domain (subject to constant change) characterized by the combined use of electrons and the electromagnetic spectrum, whose purpose is to create, store, modify, exchange, share, and extract, use, eliminate information and disrupt physical resources.  Cyberspace includes: a) physical infrastructures and telecommunications devices that allow for the connection of technological and communication system networks, understood in the broadest sense (SCADA devices, smartphones/tablets, computers, servers, etc.); b) computer systems (see point a) and the related (sometimes embedded) software that guarantee the domain's basic operational functioning and connectivity; c) networks between computer systems; d) networks of networks that connect computer systems (the distinction between networks and networks of networks is mainly organizational); e) the access nodes of users and intermediaries routing nodes; f) constituent data (or resident data).  Often, in common parlance (and sometimes in commercial language), networks of networks are called the Internet (with a lowercase i), while networks between computers are called intranet.  Internet (with a capital I, in journalistic language sometimes called the Net) can be considered a part of the system a).  A distinctive and constitutive feature of cyberspace is that no central entity exercises control over all the networks that make up this new domain.<ref>Definition by Marco Mayer, Luigi Martino, Pablo Mazurier and Gergana Tzvetkova, Draft Pisa, 19 May 2014 https://www.academia.edu/7096442/How_would_you_define_Cyberspace {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170620173827/http://www.academia.edu/7096442/How_would_you_define_Cyberspace |date=2017-06-20 }}</ref>
 
Just as in the real world there is no world government, cyberspace lacks an institutionally predefined hierarchical center.  To cyberspace, a domain without a hierarchical ordering principle, we can, therefore, extend the definition of international politics coined by Kenneth Waltz: as being "with no system of law enforceable."  This does not mean that the dimension of power in cyberspace is absent, nor that power is dispersed and scattered into a thousand invisible streams, nor that it is evenly spread across myriad people and organizations, as some scholars had predicted.  On the contrary, cyberspace is characterized by a precise structuring of hierarchies of power.<ref>The most recent analysis of the interaction of Cyberspace and International politics has been investigated in the MIT, Harvard and CFR ECIR project (Explorations in Cyber International Relations http://ecir.mit.edu/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140904123841/http://ecir.mit.edu/ |date=2014-09-04 }}).  ECIR Principal Investigator is Nazli Choucri [https://web.archive.org/web/20120928082740/http://web.mit.edu/polisci/people/faculty/nazli-choucri.html]</ref>}}

The [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] of the [[United States Department of Defense]] define cyberspace as one of five interdependent domains, the remaining four being land, air, maritime, and space.<ref name=JP3-12>{{cite web |url=http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_12R.pdf |title=DoD Joint Publication 3-12(R) Cyberspace Operations (5 February 2013) |access-date=2018-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127164919/http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_12R.pdf |archive-date=2018-01-27 |url-status=dead }}</ref> ''See [[United States Cyber Command]]''

==Cyberspace as an Internet metaphor==
{{See also|Internet metaphors|Internet-related prefixes}}

While cyberspace should not be confused with the Internet, the term is often used to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a [[website]], for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace".<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/geoj.12009 |title=Geography/internet: Ethereal alternate dimensions of cyberspace or grounded augmented realities? |journal=The Geographical Journal |volume=179 |issue=2 |pages=177–182 |year=2013 |last1=Graham |first1=Mark |bibcode=2013GeogJ.179..177G }}</ref> According to this interpretation, events taking place on the Internet are not happening in the locations where participants or servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace". The philosopher [[Michel Foucault]] used the term ''[[Heterotopia (space)|heterotopia]]s'' to describe such spaces which are simultaneously physical and mental.

Firstly, cyberspace describes the flow of digital data through the network of interconnected computers: it is at once not "real"{{Em dash}}since one could not spatially locate it as a tangible object{{Em dash}}and clearly "real" in its effects. There have been several attempts to create a concise model about how cyberspace works since it is not a physical thing that can be looked at.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bryant|first=William|date=November–December 2013|title=Cyberspace Superiority A Conceptual Model|url=http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a589636.pdf|journal=Air & Space Power Journal|volume=27|pages=25–44|access-date=2018-10-29|archive-date=2017-03-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170304121456/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a589636.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Secondly, cyberspace is the site of [[computer-mediated communication]] (CMC), in which online relationships and alternative forms of online identity are enacted, raising important questions about the social psychology of Internet use, the relationship between "online" and "offline" forms of life and interaction, and the relationship between the "real" and the virtual. Cyberspace draws attention to the remediation of culture through [[new media]] technologies: it is not just a communication tool, but a social destination, and is culturally significant in its own right. Finally, cyberspace can be seen as providing new opportunities to reshape society and culture through "hidden" identities, or it can be seen as borderless communication and culture.<ref name=NM_1>{{cite book| title=New Media: An Introduction| author=Terry, F.| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DajYGAAACAAJ| publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]| date=2008| access-date=19 January 2024| isbn=978-0195551495}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Cyberspace is the "place" where a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other person's phone, in some other city. '''The place between''' the phones. [...] in the past twenty years, this electrical "space," which was once thin and dark and one-dimensional—little more than a narrow speaking-tube, stretching from phone to phone—has flung itself open like a gigantic jack-in-the-box. Light has flooded upon it, the eerie light of the glowing computer screen. This dark electric netherworld has become a vast flowering electronic landscape. Since the 1960s, the world of the telephone has cross-bred itself with computers and television, and though there is still no substance to cyberspace, nothing you can handle, it has a strange kind of physicality now. It makes good sense today to talk of cyberspace as a place all its own.|Bruce Sterling|Introduction to '''[[The Hacker Crackdown]]'''}}

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 Internet as an extension of the space they are in), but spatial meaning can be attributed to the relationship between different [[Web page|page]]s (of books as well as [[web server]]s), 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|feedback loops]] between the user and the rest of the system creating the potential to always encounter something unknown or unexpected.

[[Video game]]s 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 [[Avatar (virtual reality)|avatar]]s. Games do not have to stop at the avatar-player level, but current implementations aiming for more [[immersion (virtual reality)|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<ref>John Perry Barlow, [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100228062257/http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html |date=2010-02-28 }}, February 8, 1996</ref>) failed to materialize and the word lost some of its novelty appeal, it remains current {{as of|2006|lc=y}}.<ref name="georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov"/><ref>[http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/scitech/cyber/ ''FindLaw Legal News'' site] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061115100949/http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/scitech/cyber/ |date=2006-11-15 }}, Tech and IP: Cyberspace section, retrieved November 14, 2006.</ref>

Some [[virtual communities]] explicitly refer to the concept of cyberspace{{Em dash}}for example, [[Linden Lab]] calling their customers "[[Resident (Second Life)|Residents]]" of [[Second Life]]{{Em dash}}while all such communities can be positioned "in cyberspace" for explanatory and comparative purposes (as did Sterling in ''The Hacker Crackdown'', followed by many journalists), integrating the metaphor into a wider [[cyberculture|cyber-culture]].

The metaphor has been useful in helping a new generation of thought leaders to reason through new military strategies around the world, led largely by the US Department of Defense (DoD).<ref>Cyber Conflict Studies Association, [http://www.cyberconflict.org CCSA] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071013160121/http://cyberconflict.org/ |date=2007-10-13 }}</ref> The use of cyberspace as a metaphor has had its limits, however, especially in areas where the metaphor becomes confused with physical infrastructure. It has also been critiqued as being unhelpful for falsely employing a spatial metaphor to describe what is inherently a network.<ref name=":0" />

==Alternate realities in philosophy and art==

===Predating computers===
A forerunner of the modern ideas of cyberspace is the [[Descartes|Cartesian]] notion that people might be deceived by an [[evil demon]] that feeds them a false reality. This argument is the direct predecessor of modern ideas of a [[brain in a vat]] and many popular conceptions of cyberspace take Descartes's ideas as their starting point.

[[Visual arts]] have a tradition, stretching [[Zeuxis and Parrhasius|back to antiquity]], of artifacts meant to [[Trompe-l'œil|fool the eye]] and be mistaken for reality. This questioning of reality occasionally led some philosophers and especially theologians<ref>Ranging across history, from the interference of depictions of newly died in the 
[[Great Dreaming]] of Australian aboriginal ancestors; East Roman/Byzantine iconoclasm movements in the 8th and 8th c. CE; in Islam, [[Sunni]] and other exegetes from the 9th century onward; in Judaism, Joseph Karo's [[Shulkhan Arukh]] (Code of Jewish Law: Venice, 1563); and, in the Bahai faith, the concerns of [[Shoghi Effendi]], the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith (1921–57).</ref> 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 ''[[L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat|Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat]]''), and 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<ref>Alexander Laurence, [http://www.altx.com/int2/john.shirley.html An Interview] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070103104953/http://www.altx.com/int2/john.shirley.html |date=2007-01-03 }} with [[John Shirley]], 1994</ref><ref>[http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPgraf/CyberCulture/bgtg.htm "Burroughs/Gysin/Throbbing Gristle"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061113202227/http://www.streettech.com/bcp/BCPgraf/CyberCulture/bgtg.htm |date=2006-11-13 }}, retrieved December 31, 2006</ref>) and [[Timothy Leary]]<ref>"Internet will be the LSD of the 90s", quoted by [http://www.timothyleary.us/timothyleary.html an on-line biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061209063453/http://www.timothyleary.us/timothyleary.html |date=2006-12-09 }}</ref> were among the first to extol the potential of computers and computer networks for individual empowerment.<ref>[[Douglas Rushkoff]], [http://www.deepleafproductions.com/utopialibrary/text/rushkoff-godfathers.html "Godfathers of Cyberspace"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061214074317/http://www.deepleafproductions.com/utopialibrary/text/rushkoff-godfathers.html |date=2006-12-14 }}</ref>

Some contemporary philosophers and scientists (e.g. [[David Deutsch]] in ''The Fabric of Reality'') employ virtual reality in various [[thought experiment]]s. For example, Philip Zhai in ''Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality'' connects cyberspace to the Platonic tradition:

{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{cite book |last= Zhai|first= Philip|author-link= Philip Zhai|date= 1998|title= Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality|edition= 1st|publisher= Rowman & Littlefield|page= 82|isbn=9780847689835}}</ref>}}

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".

===Cyber-geography===
The “Geography of Notopia” (Papadimitriou, 2006) theorizes about the complex interplay of cyber-cultures and the geographical space. This interplay has several philosophical and psychological facets (Papadimitriou, 2009).

====A new communication model====

The [[technological convergence]] of the [[mass media]] is the result of a long adaptation process of their communicative resources to the evolutionary changes of each historical moment. Thus, the new media became an extension of the traditional media in cyberspace, allowing the public access to information in a wide range of digital devices.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Communication Model of Virtual Universe |publisher = Grin Verlag|date = 2014-01-28|location = Munich|isbn = 9783656569916|first1 = Marcelo Mendonca|last1 = Teixeira|first2 = Tiago Alessandro Espinola|last2 = Ferreira}}</ref> In other words, it is a cultural virtualization of human reality as a result of the migration from physical to virtual space (mediated by the ICTs), ruled by codes, signs and particular social relationships. Forwards, arise instant ways of communication, interaction and possible quick access to information, in which we are no longer mere senders, but also producers, reproducers, co-workers and providers. New technologies also help to "connect" people from different cultures outside the virtual space, which was unthinkable fifty years ago. In this giant relationships web, we mutually absorb each other's beliefs, customs, values, laws and habits, cultural legacies perpetuated by a physical-virtual dynamics in constant metamorphosis (ibidem). In this sense, Professor Doctor Marcelo Mendonça Teixeira created, in 2013, a new model of communication to the virtual universe,<ref>{{cite book|title=The Communication Model of Virtual Universe: Amazon.co.uk: Marcelo MendonÃ§a Teixeira, Tiago Alessandro EspÃnola Ferreira: 9783656569916: Books |id={{ASIN|3656569916|country=uk}} }}</ref> based in Claude Elwood Shannon (1948) article "A Mathematical Theory of Communication".

====Art====
{{Main|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 interest in the concept, such as [[Roy Ascott]], "cyberspace" in [[digital art]] is mostly used as a synonym for [[immersive virtual reality]] and remains more discussed than enacted.<ref>Eduardo Kac, [http://www.ekac.org/Telepresence.art._94.html ''"Telepresence Art"''] {{Webarchive|url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090713053014/http://www.ekac.org/Telepresence.art._94.html |date=2009-07-13 }}</ref>

====Computer crime====
{{Main|Computer crime}}

Cyberspace also brings together every service and facility imaginable to expedite money laundering. One can purchase anonymous credit cards, bank accounts, encrypted global mobile telephones, and false passports. From there one can pay professional advisors to set up IBCs (International Business Corporations, or corporations with anonymous ownership) or similar structures in OFCs (Offshore Financial Centers). Such advisors are loath to ask any penetrating questions about the wealth and activities of their clients, since the average fees criminals pay them to launder their money can be as much as 20 percent.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1111/1467-8497.00284 |title=Dot.Con: The Dangers of Cyber Crime and a Call for Proactive Solutions |journal=Australian Journal of Politics and History |volume=49 |pages=102–109 |year=2003 |last1=Granville |first1=Johanna }}</ref>

====5-level model====
In 2010, a five-level model was designed in France. According to this model, cyberspace is composed of five layers based on information discoveries: 1) language, 2) writing, 3) printing, 4) Internet, 5) Etc., i.e. the rest, e.g. [[noosphere]], [[artificial life]], artificial intelligence, etc., etc. This original model links the world of information to telecommunication technologies.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

==See also==
*{{anl|Cyber-HUMINT}}
*{{anl|Information superhighway}}
*{{anl|Internet of things}}
*{{anl|Metaverse}}
*{{anl|Simulated reality}}
*{{anl|Telepresence}}
*{{anl|Virtual world}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
<!-- see WP:GTL#Standard appendices -->
*Cyberculture, The key Concepts, edited by David Bell, Brian D.Loader, Nicholas Pleace and Douglas Schuler
*[[Christine Buci-Glucksmann]], "L’art à l’époque virtuel", in Frontières esthétiques de l’art, Arts 8, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004
*[[William Gibson]]. ''Neuromancer:20th Anniversary Edition''. New York:Ace Books, 2004.
*[[Oliver Grau]]: ''Virtual Art. From Illusion to Immersion'', MIT-Press, Cambridge 2003. (4 Auflagen).
*[[David Koepsell]], ''The Ontology of Cyberspace'', Chicago: Open Court, 2000.
* {{cite journal
 | last=Ippolito
 | first=Jon
 | title=Cross Talk: Is Cyberspace Really a Space?
 | journal=Artbyte
 | date=December 1998 – January 1999
 | pages=12–24
 }}
*Irvine, Martin. [https://web.archive.org/web/20061019064013/http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/technoculture/pomosf.html "Postmodern Science Fiction and Cyberpunk"], retrieved 2006-07-19.
*Slater, Don 2002, 'Social Relationships and Identity Online and Offline', in L.Lievrouw and S.Livingston (eds), The Handbook of New Media, Sage, London, pp533–46.
*{{cite journal |doi=10.1177/146499341001100303 |title=Time machines and virtual portals |journal=Progress in Development Studies |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=211–227 |year=2011 |last1=Graham |first1=Mark |citeseerx=10.1.1.659.9379 |s2cid=17281619 }}
*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.
*Teixeira, Marcelo Mendonça (2012). Cyberculture: From Plato To The Virtual Universe. The Architecture of Collective Intelligence. Munich: Grin Verlag.

==Further reading==
* Branch, J. (2020). "[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/whats-in-a-name-metaphors-and-cybersecurity/563998100A2FAF1E5DFDB5C52EC68569 What's in a Name? Metaphors and Cybersecurity.]" ''International Organization.''

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|cyberspace}}
{{Commons category}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20041128084523/http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace] by [[John Perry Barlow]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060408081239/http://www.sociosite.org/index_en.php Peculiarities of Cyberspace] by [[Albert Benschop]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040406025300/http://www.thiemeworks.com/islands/aug/sexrnc.html Sex, Religion and Cyberspace] by [[Richard Thieme]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20020919045219/http://www.uwichill.edu.bb/bnccde/ph29a/putnam.html Brains in a vat] philosophical argument against the idea that we could be in cyberspace and not know it by [[Hilary Putnam]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20071213152514/http://www.af.mil/library/speeches/speech.asp?id=283 Cyberspace as a Domain] In which the Air Force Flies and Fights, Speech by Secretary of the Air Force [[Michael Wynne]]

{{William Gibson}}

[[Category:Cyberspace| ]]
[[Category:Cyberpunk themes]]
[[Category:History of the Internet]]
[[Category:Hyperreality]]
[[Category:Information Age]]
[[Category:Virtual reality]]
[[Category:William Gibson]]
[[Category:1980s neologisms]]