2. CYBERSPACE



2.1. Subjective Space


Human space is an area that man produces and defines by himself, using systems like the synthesis of knowledge, experience, social and cultural conditions. Thus, the space where we live is a subjective product of our consciousness and can be called an existential space. As pointed out by Christian Norberg-Schulz, we do not simply perceive the world as common to us all, as some naive realists claim, but as different worlds that are “products of our motivations and past experiences”. „Objective space does not exist.” - says Schulz.The existence of intersubjective space is only a hypothesis, and every man owns his own "private" space.” [1]



According to cognitive psychology, stimulus information processing plays as equally an important role in determining behavior as the stimuli itself (Input Stimuli). Psychologists say that people in this process are not simply reactive beings, but more importantly, active beings who choose and create their own individual stimuli environments:

A person doesn’t respond to the reality of the objective world, he responds to reality as it is represented in the subjective reality of his inner world of thought and imagination. [2]



It also has been proven that perception of space is a complex process that involves a number of factors:



Generally speaking, perception leads to the formulation of important assumptions about the nature of the environment, and these assumptions vary depending on the situation we are in. [3]​



From early childhood, we attempt to define our own living space. Initially, we put our own being in the center to build an outer world around ourselves. From these initial experiments, as evidenced by Norberg-Schulz, arise a strong cultural need to determine the center of everything we build and create—the center of a house, city or country. Peter Anders said that our position in space determines the mutual relationships between the elements in this space because we are in the center of each spatial scheme we create and we are also the point of reference for every spatial arrangement.



2.2. Existential space

Norberg-Schulz believes that human interest in space has existential roots arising from the need to capture important relationships in the environment, and from the need to introduce meaning and order to the world. The concept of existential space includes processes that create and arrange our own internal subjective space. Existential space is a space that draws us into a broad social and cultural structure and allows us to exist in it. Norberg-Schulz believes that the concept of existential space is the key to defining any kind of space. He argues that lack of awareness of the existential theory of space renders any attempts to define and design the space incomplete and inadequate.  The roots of Norberg-Schulz’s theory of existential space are found in the research of psychologist Jean Piaget, who proved that our awareness of space is based on operational schemes—the experiences we have with different things and situations.



"Existential Space" is a psychological concept, defining schemas that man develops in interaction with the environment in order to be able to satisfactorily operate in it. [4]

Existential Space, in other words, is a relatively stable perceptual framework—an "image" of the environment. This system is shaped by cultural patterns, our own experiences, knowledge, and ability to connect facts with each other—in other words, intelligence. Piaget emphasizes the role of intelligence:

The true nature of space does not lie in a more or less developed nature of experience as such, but in the intelligence that binds these experiences together. [5]​

This inner space, according to Norberg-Schulz, still needs spatial and perceptive coordinates, or ways of establishing relationships between the elements of space, focal points of these spaces, setting directions and determining territories.  Derrick de Kerckhove says that, “space is a product of consciousness and our perceived space derives from a mix of direct and mediated stimulation.” [6] Space is a product of the interactions between organism and environment, and it is impossible to separate the visualized organization of the world from the organization of the activity itself.

2.3. The space of the mind

The notion of Mental Space as a theoretical construct proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Armen Khederlariana, refers to the existence of possible worlds in philosophy. Mental space, according to the authors of the concept, does not contain a credible representation of reality, but its idealized cognitive model.  The concept of mental space with respect to cyberspace, however, conveys slightly different meanings. It is used to emphasize its belonging to a group of spaces associated with the architecture of the mind, and to emphasize the contrast between the known world of thought and the unfamiliar, incomprehensible world of nature. This space of mind (mental space) can be considered another term for subjective existential space, wherein the mind is the main causative tool.  In his book Envisioning Cyberspace, Peter Anders proves that cyberspace is a kind of mental space. He believes that space itself is the medium—a communication tool for thought. Communication in mental space happens by formulating metaphors, symbols and characters, and the more we learn to operate in this environment the more we create spaces of memory and cognition. Anders gives an example of the medieval practice of constructing Memory Palaces as a specific sample of the architecture of mental space. Memory palaces were constructs similar in design to known architectural structures, and thoughts could be located in the various nooks of these buildings. In this way, men could memorize long sequences of verbal communication. At the time, such methods were necessary to maintain the continuity of history and language because of the high cost of written media. Anders says that the idea of memory palaces comes back in cyberspace, notably in the processes of memory mapping, databasing and visualization. Reasoning is based on spatial thinking; Mnemonic Structures, Memory Images, Mental Models which all make cyberspace a mental space.



Other researchers, such as Derrick de Kerckhove, believe that cyberspace is not a mental space, but its electronic evolution (extension).  Cyberspace cannot be only mental space – as mental space works internally without the use of conductors and electronic amplifiers (computers and network connections), while cyberspace is an environment dependent on this type of generators. According to Kerckhove, the common ground for cyberspace and mental space is virtuality:

It is virtuality, not the spatiality of cyberspace, that makes it akin to mental space. Cyberspace is fluid and inexhaustible like the mind, but it is neither exclusively material not truly “mental.” And it certainly is different from physical space. It is a single environment, allowing every imaginable combination, permutation and configuration of networks. Mental space is also virtual. Both kinds of spaces require visualization and design, and both play with sensorial representations/simulations. Both are endowed with memory, and both have search, retrieve and display mechanisms. Both practice information processing and both are endowed with intelligence. [7]

To summarize, cyberspace is a space rooted in mental space, but it is not just a mental space; it is a new electronic area and an extension of the mind.

2.4. Cyberspace 

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Cyberspace is a concept introduced by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer (1984):

”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 non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding."  [8]​

The term “cyberspace” is the combination of “cyber,” (from the Greek kybernan, which means control [9]) with the concept of space. The prefix “cyber” is usually associated with the field of cybernetics: “the science of effective organization, control and communication mechanisms of animals and machines” [10].  Cybernetics and its scientific methods largely determined man’s approach to understanding life and space in the twentieth century. Today, cyberspace is identified with electronic networks, information technology, communication space, and especially with internet communication.



Some people point to the beginnings of cyberspace in the early Morse telegraph experiments, and broaden its definition to include all possible methods of remote communication and creation in the tele-space [11]. Contemporary communication networks that surround Earth (satellites, Internet, telephone, etc.) create the so-called Bitsphere (Mitchell), which is the tissue of cyberspace’s construction.



Cyberspace is thus a space of connections, an intangible area of communication. Ostrowicki says that electronic environments trigger the information-oriented nature of man to explore and search for new means of coexistence [12]. Electronic environments convey communication in their nature:

There is a new continuity between the private mind and the world, but there is also a new connectivity between the private minds in the world. [13]​​

While cyberspace is undeniably part of our everyday life, or existential space, it is also a sphere of cognition, analysis and creation. It is an integral part of the existential space of each individual, and, as a “tool of thought,” an extension of the mental space within which we synthesize all of the processes that produce the image of our own subjective reality.  Cyberspace in relation to other types of space—physical and mental spaces—cannot be, as Grosz says, a “parallel universe',” but is instead an integral part of the world in which we operate every day. Cyberspace, according to Kerckhove, is qualitatively different, although partially integrated with other types of ”space” that people occupy: physical and mental space.



Cyberspace is the third area between, around and within the physical and mental spaces (...). [14]​

In contrast to cyberspace, which relates to intangible values, we have the so-called “meatspace,” or the space of the body. The term “meatspace” reflects the contemporary gap between the known and the (seemingly) defined space of the mind and the body—a mechanism we have not yet managed to understand. This mind/body conflict is clearly visible in twentieth century culture, where the body is a burden for the imaginative mind, which is fueled by communication and the promises offered by the electronics and computer industry. The mind develops, the body grows old and dies. Many, including Stanislaw Lem, dreamed of the separation of body and mind, where the spontaneous functioning of the brain and consciousness, without depending on the imperfect state of the body, is the ultimate model of living. Many similar visions can be found in science fiction literature.  The dream of freeing the mind from the body is not the only role that the concept of body plays in cyberspace. The flesh of cyberspace is liquid, living, and fluctuating. From this perspective, biological associations with the body are instead a tribute to the inexpressible perfection of biological mechanisms that desire to explore the essence of biological life and point in the direction of engineering and cybernetics development.

Cyberspace is malleable, fluid, computable with high accuracy, and process-able in real time; [it is] hypertextual, interactive, and finally, virtual. [15]​

Cyberspace is not just an extension of the mind, but it also strengthens it. Lem, in Summa, imagined computers as “intelligence amplifiers” that support man’s biological computing operations. Robinette, in updating Lem’s concept, prefers the term - "Intelligence Amplification". Cyberspace is an extension of mental and physical space, a way of existence in space.





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[1] Szmidt B., Ład przestrzeni, PIW, Warszawa 1981, p. 25.
[2] Zimbardo P.G., Psychologia i życie, tłum. Czerniawska E., PWN, Warszawa 2002.
[3] Norberg – Schulz C., Bycie, przestrzeń i architektura, Murator, Warszawa, 2000, p. 10.
[4] Norberg – Schulz C., op.cit., p. 37.
[5] Ibid., p. 17.
[6] Kerckhove D., The Architecture of Intelligence (The Information Technology Revolution in Architecture), Birkhäuser Basel, 2001, p. 12.

[7] Kerckhove D., op.cit., p. 18.

[8] Gibson W., Neuromancer, Zysk - s-ka, Warszawa 2001; przekład Piotr W. Cholewa.

[9] Kopaliński Władysław – Słownik wyrazów obcych i zwrotów obcojęzycznych, Wiedza Powszechna, Warszawa, 1968
[10] Chris Lucas
[11] Cyberspace, although defined as new, is not new. The early pioneers like Morse, Edison and Marconi penetrated it already. The invention of the computer only increased its territory, since the uses of electronic computing. The marriage of similarities, cyberspace: it can be considered  as the area of electronic communication including communication networks, signal transmission, and the interaction of computers. Francis Habit
[12] Ostrowicki M., Wirtualne Realis. Estetyka w epoce elektroniki, Universitas, Kraków 2006, (p. 29)

[13] Kerckhove D., op.cit, p. 15.
[14] Ibid​., p. 17.

[15] Pierre Levy