Eggs Benedikt - Retrospekt, Prospekt

Prospect - "The possibility or likelihood of a future event happening."

The definitions of cyberspace in Michael Benedikt's essay "Cyberspace: First Steps" didn't really leap out at me; that is to say, there wasn't really one in particular that leaped out at me that made jump for joy or made my heart go pitter-patter. Instead, it was a line or phrase from this one or an idea touched on in that one that made me go "Hmmm," not because of the language being perfect at describing it, but because it touched on the more ethereal soul-level concepts that make up the basis for cyberspace.

In his referenced definitions, there is a theme [in some] of limitlessness and ubiquity, like a place with no line on the horizon in any given direction. This is interesting to me. One definition likened cyberspace to a "parallel universe" which, interestingly enough, is quite like our own. Our universe has been expanding in a spherical 'every way at once' trajectory since either the "big bang" or the "let there be light" episode (if really there is a difference between the two in this context), much like cyberspace since its onset; information is always discovered, generated, and inputed from this universe to that one.

I prefer to stick with ambiguous and ethereal terms like "limitless" and the like in referring to cyberspace, because, like Benedikt developed in the essay, cyberspace is an evolving project of ridiculous scope and subconscious ambition that spans ages, not decades. Its story can be followed through the journey of technology - from cave paintings to the global village, from the stone tablet to the scroll, to the book to the blog; cyberspace pays homage to the massive trek in its entirety.

I've never thought of cyberspace as the most evolved version of this "third world" like Benedikt talked about it when I first logged onto the internet or even got immersed in a video game, but tracing the broad idea of cyberspace, there are very important pillars that come into play that he discussed that really enlightened my perception when thinking about it: mythology, history, architecture, and mathematics. The merging of the idyllic on one hand with the psychological underpinnings of architecture and the logic of math has allowed for this parallel universe to come about in such a 'real' way in the past 30 or 40 years even though it is virtual. "It" was inevitable.

We come, we partake of intimacy and "security" all at once. Where are we? We're on our computer our we're on our phone or we're playing as our avatar in our video game in front of the television. Right? In world number one, sure. In an increasingly legitimate world number three? Hell if I know. If cyberspace were laid out in a cartesian coordinate system (in an X, Y, and Z graph), where do those locations fall? More important yet, where is (0,0,0)?