The Extensions of Cyberspace
“It is possible to attain immortality in cyberspace, because there everything is data only” (Jari Peltola) In Cyberspace, computer programmers use data and matrix code (0101010101…) to create the characters in a familiar spatial image like cities, buildings etc used as metaphors of social structures” (Jari Peltola) For example, the film of “The Matrix”. The roles in the film are living in a virtual digitized cyberspace, and everything in there is programmed by computer technologies. In the scene of evading the bullets, the characters can quickly evade the bullet, which is impossible happen in the real life, but it has done in the Cyberspace. However, it does not mean that they will not die, because they live by their consciousness which being in the real world. If the consciousness lost, they will die or disappear. “In Cyberspace, Bodiless consciousnesses live there” (Jari Peltola)
Sometimes we will be confused by the Cyberspace and the reality, because in the developed world, people created so many media types in Cyberspace. For example, in our normal life people can make the on-line transaction at home. They can buy or sell the products on the internet and then get the profits to use them in the real life. "Cyberspace is made of information, offering great power to those who can manipulate information” (Jari Peltola) The on-line game “Second Life” is a typical example for this issue. Since 2003, “Second Life” was published, which is a 3-D virtual world on-line game. In the Second Life world, you can imagine and create anything you want and you can build your live in real-time. Once you have built something, you can easily begin to sell it to other residents, because you control the Internet Protocol (IP) rights of your Creations. (http://secondlife.com/whatis/create.php) And even the money you earned in Second Life, you can also exchange to the US dollars which can be used in your real life. As a result, Second life became another kind of community of Cyberspace.
It proved that John Perry Barlow stated the Independence of Cyberspace has been denied. However, Dion Hinchcliffe Stated the Death of Cyberspace has come out:
"Before now, you had to consciously go to cyberspace by sitting at a PC and looking at it through a window, in essence going to a place where you primarily observed and gathered knowledge. Not any more. These days the boundaries between reality and cyberspace are becoming increasingly blurred and the activities on the Web are becoming more two ways and integrated with reality... With going into cyberspace no longer being a discrete step (folks are more and more always there now) and with the primary activity often being to interact with other folks transparently and you have a folding of cyberspace so severe that it just disappears into the ether.” - Dion Hinchcliffe
Reference
Jari Peltola Peltola, Jari World of Worlds? Conceptualising Cyberspace available on http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~jarpelt/cyberw.htm (accessed on 01/11/2008)
Matrix, 1999. [Film] Directed by Wachowski A & Wachowski L. USA: Warner Bros Pictures.
Dion Hinchcliffe (From Breo, the lecture handout)
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