[Air-l] Internet vs. WWW

[reuven shlozberg]

Art, thanks for your detailed response. 

However,

> Incorrect. The sum total of all that is metaphorically 
> referred to as "online" is most properly called Cyberspace.
> 
> Some people extend cyberspace to include non-computer 
> related technologies and forms of communication not 
> involving technology, but for the most part, common usage of 
> the term Cyberspace has narrowed over the years to be 
> specific to CMC.
> 
> Cyberspace predates The Internet and is a superset of The 
> Internet. Cyberspace includes proprietary networks and 
> protocols that existed before the Internet was conceived of 
> and still exist outside of it.
> 
and later on ...
> 
> > also, up till now i also thought of "cyberworld" as an a 
> > term interchangeable with the other two terms, but that 
> > leaves me with no term to denote the "life-world" of 
> > people online, as distinguished from "the Internet" as 
> > defined above. Could "cyberworld" be used to denote this 
> > "life-world", or will that be another gross carelessness 
> > with definitions (i can almost feel Thomas Hobbes standing 
> > behind me getting ready to slap me ... )
> 
> Cyberspace is definitely NOT interchangeable with The 
> Internet or the WWW. As I said before:
> 

I was talking about "cyberworld", not "cyberspace". And actually, your
response helps me clarify what i was trying to get at in the comment
above. There is a difference for me between "space" and "world", in that
space denotes to me a physical entity, "physical space" while "world"
denotes to me a "space of meaning". The various objects in the room
around me comprise "my space", but the meanings i ascribe to each of
them separately and/or to some and all of them together comprise "my
world"; "The Earth" is the physical space in which human beings exist,
"The World" is the system of meanings, values, norms, and symbols that
human beings have created for ourselves to live in. "Cyberspace" and
Cyberworld" are thus "cyber-translations" of the same distinction. So
although both are distinguished from "Internet", when i think of
"cyberspace" and "cyberworld", i think of two different things. Granted,
though, these may very well be idiosyncratic definitions - i don't know.
But what other and better word is there for the "space of meanings" that
is created by Internet users through Internet use?

Reuven Shlozberg
Political Science
University of Toronto