I’ve decided that I want to recreate a physical, yet not quite physical, virtual reality of cyberspace in a virtual reality environment.
What is cyberspace? I’ve already written about that so I won’t repeat myself. Now I am getting closer to the end of my MA by Research I am asking whether it would be possible to re-create the imagined objects of cyberspace, as other people see them, in an environment they can physically enter yet not touch.
Cyberspace is a mental reality. It is also a physical reality. It exists so therefore it is physical, we cannot deny that. Yet, what does it look like? We can’t touch it so therefore it isn’t physical. Yet it touches our lives. We all enter it every day, for hours sometimes. It can be an addictive place to be in. But really, what does it look like? How I see it might be different to how the person reading this sees it.
This is a very science fictional image of cyberspace
To me, this parallels how we see the mind. How I see my mind cannot ever be the same as how the person reading this sees their mind. I see it as a physical place, somewhere I enter when I’m thinking or I’m trying to sleep. Somewhere I feel I really am physically immersed in when I am asleep and dreaming. Is not cyberspace a bit like that? Can we describe it? Is it a positive space or a negative space?
So my question is: would it be possible to re-create a cyberspace based on everyone’s interpretation of it? Or is that a little too ambitious? After all, I can’t imagine recreating my mind.
If I manage to do this, the question is, who is the creator? Me, or ‘you’. If I ask ‘you’ how you see cyberspace and I create a cyberspace based on the answers from a lot of ‘you’s’, then who is the artist? You are.
Indeed, who could we describe as the original creator of the real cyberspace? God created the physical world (or so some believe), therefore did he create also the virtual one? There is no such thing as something out of nothing.