![[Home]](http://meatballwiki.org/meatball.gif)
WhatIsSpace
MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | CategoriesRough Notes
- ObjectiveSpace? is this the same as PhysicalSpace?? no. VirtualReality may be embedded in an ObjectiveSpace?, such as AlphaWorld?.
- SemanticSpace
- SocialSemanticSpace?
Space as organizing metaphor for information
- As we experience space, and construct representations of it, we know that it will be ocntinuous. Everyting is somewhere, and nomatter what other characteristics objects do not share, they always share relative location, that is, spatiality; hence the desirability of equating knowledge with space, an intellectual space. This assures an organization and a basis for predictability, which are shared by absolutely everyone. This proposition appears to be so fundamental that apparently it is simply adopted a priori. -- A.H. Robinson & B.B. Petchenik, The nature of maps: essays towards understanding maps and mapping, 197, p.4. as qtd. in Turnbull (1994, p. 2) [MapsAreTerritories]
- Unlike the 'here and now' langauge of the other higher primates, human lnaguage began to bind 'events in space and time within a web of logical relations governed by grammar and metaphor'. Wittgenstein's proposition that 'the limits of my language mean the limits of my world' remains valid. One could go furhter and say that the origins of language and the grwoth of spatial consciousness in man are closely interrelated. The cognitive schema that underlay primitive speech must have had a strong spatial component. Not all messages were spatial in content or manifestation, but many would have been, and these would have helped to provide the structural as well as the fundamental foundations of language. -- M. Lewis, 'The origins of cartography' (1987) pp. 51-52 as qtd. in Turnbull (1994, p. 2) in MapsAreTerritories.
- Once we labeled space and formed relations to them, we developed cognitive structures to rationalize space, and thus we used the same machinery to rationalize other cognitive processes. (Lewis, 1987)
(Dodge & Kitchin, 2001b)
Curry (1995)
- conceptions of space lies on a continuum
- at one end relationship among objects is strictly contingent
- at other end are conceptions where objectds in space have very strong, even necessary and intrisinc relations with one another and the space in which they are located
- Four perspectives of space
- Aristotelian: hierarchical, static, concrete
- Newtonian; absolute grid, within which objects are located and events occur
- Leibnizian: fundamentally relational and defined entirely in terms of those relationships
- Kantian: a form imposed on the world by humans
- Scientific perception of space (Newtonian, Leibnizian) are derived from physics of space and time. Geographic terms understands space in Euclidean geometry --> rationalized, objective, external, empirical for analytical purposes.
In recent years, this notion has been challenged in geographic world. Soja (1985) gives us the term spatiality: while not all space is socially produced, as spatiality is. Spatiality divides space from space-time physics as it dives space as used and constructed from space as mathematically formulated.
Space is not a neutral and passive geometry, but rather is contiuously produced through socio-spatial relations; the relationship between space, spatial forms, and spatial behaviour is not contingent on 'natural' spatial laws, but is the spatial prodcut of cultural, social, political, and economic relations; space is not essential but is consturcted and produced.
Curry, M. (1995) On space and spatial practice in contemporary geography. In C. Earle, K. Mathewson, and M. Kenzer (eds.) Concepts in Human Geography. (pp. 3-32) Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield PUblishers.
Soja, E. (1985) The spatality of social life: Towards a transformative retheorisation. In D. Gregory and J. Urry (eds.) Social relations and spatial structures. (pp. 90-112), London: MacMillon?.
Space discussions seem very difficult and I had a few of them. Typically in the context "Does Hyperspace have the quality of a real living space?", where architects and social scientist here in Austria (maybe Europe, don't know about other places) typically answer this by "no, it has not". On the other hand, we - from the online communities - know that our places here are an important part of our life. We also see, that they have similar qualities like physical space. I think that these similarities are not superficial but essential. One thing is the concept of neighbourhood, the other one is the scarcety of online community space. Both have nothing to do with the technical qualities of the internet or the way systems are adressed. Both are of utmost importance when developing online communities. -- HelmutLeitner