From: shaun@octel.com (Chocolate Flavored Clorox)
Subject: Re: Definition of Cyberspace
Keywords:  Sony Entertainment backs every word I say
Organization: Octel Communications Inc., Milpitas Ca.
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 03:50:01 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.232537.4673@csus.edu> arthurc@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Arthur Chandler) writes:
>   Has anyone here ever tried to formulate a definition of Cyberspace?

>  1) Do you/we consider telephones part of Cyberspace?
>  2) Radios and television?
>  3) Is a disk full of information a part of cyberspace even if it
>     sitting on the shelf, unconnected to a computer?
>  4) Is there a cyberspace equivalent of gravity?

Before working on a definition, you need to specify for what purpose you 
wish to use it.  From your questions, it looks like you are working on 
defining boundaries.  I consider this a hard problem, because people
can't even agree on the boundaries of Usenet, and it's the closest thing
we have.

That aside, I think it is useful to think structurally of "Cyberspace"
as a blob of playdough.  It changes size, shape, and texture as various
pieces (like systems and connections) are added and removed.   I think
the following are some minimum requirements for any implementation of
cyberspace:

1)  It must be interactive. 
2)  It must be fully connected.
3)  It must have permanent storage for arbitrary types of data.
4)  It must facilitate communication between physically and temporally
    distant individuals.

These are very general, but, I think, reasonable.  Whether you want to
include the hardware or not depends on what you want to do with your
definition, but I would say that it is immaterial.  It would be 
correct, given the requirements above, to say that a particular
piece of hardware is part of a platform upon which a particular
cyberspace exists (or operates.)

A telephone connected to a network that connects to a cyberspace
could arguably be said to be a "part" of cyberspace in the same
way a modem or fiberoptic line is: as an access device.

Radios and television (and the associated broadcast hardware and
accessories) would not be since in general, they are insufficiently 
interactive.  Talk radio is no exception; for most listeners, it is 
no more interactive than Oprah, and neither provide permanent storage 
for arbitrary types of data.  However, a videocassette upon which
one exchanges data with another could be considered a "part" of 
cyberspace the same way a diskette or email message is.

A disk that is sitting on a shelf or is otherwise inaccessible would
not be a part of a cyberspace since it is not connected.

The cyberspace equivalent of gravity is the tendency for data to
seek empty storage space.   It is not physically quantifiable because
it depends in large part on the characteristics of the users of the
storage space.  Also, the closer data gets to one's own legally
owned storage, the more likely it is to decrease in redundancy as
it becomes compressed and recompressed and eventually gets laid
off to high density tape to be stored in the closet under the 
sweaters, having reached a kind of Elephant's Graveyard for data.

@Man
Rolling up the down hill despite fear of mudslides

-- 
shaun@octel.com  ||  This sentence is in the public domain.

"Since we're sharing personal habits, I empty my electic razor into the 
toilet, where each whisker, statically charged, repels the other whiskers 
and creates a nice pattern which I enjoy viewing."  -- Sleem Jeem G
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