Abstract

With the advent and growth of electronic communication, the word “cyberspace” has entered intoeveryday parlance. But what does this word signify? I begin by sketching an equivalence betweenphysical space and cyberspace, showing that they share the concepts of place, distance, size and routein common. With this mutual framework in place, I go on to examine various theories—substantival,relational, Einsteinian and Kantian—concerning the nature of physical space. We see that, whilecyberspace shares some of the properties of physical space isolated by each of these theories, still itcannot be subsumed under any one theory. We also see that cyberspace exhibits several novel properties, projecting it far beyond the scope of any existing theory and setting it apart as an exciting new spatial medium