Fully realizing the more precise metaphysical nature of the internet goes far beyond understanding how to use it on various devices or familiarity with societal internet usage habits. The internet is certainly not the most important thing to philosophically analyze, but its nature as a metaphysical thing rather than just a supposed epistemological tool (it is useful for communicating with people and sharing information, but most of what the internet is used for does not pertain to truly provable facts, and online interaction is in no way necessary to know basic rationalistic truths and plenty of logical facts that follow from them [1]) actually touches upon some very important truths about the difference between immaterial and material things.
Cyberspace refers to the digital "space" containing websites and online connections between devices, and it is sometimes used interchangeably with the term internet. Both the internet and the devices through which one accesses the internet are perceived through the senses, but the use of the senses to access perceptions of both does not mean that the internet is just another part of the physical world. It is not only introduced through technology rather than nature. The internet is also an example of an immaterial thing that can be and is (as far as all causal evidence suggests, even though causal relationships of this kind cannot be proven or known) brought into being by something physical. Since the internet, or cyberspace, is tied to electronic technology rather than the natural environment, it is all the more unique as an example of this.
Touching a computer, smartphone, or gaming system is not the same as actually touching the internet. Even if someone was irrational enough on a conceptual level to think that the internet truly is identical to electronic devices rather than something that is accessed through devices, an inability to tangibly grasp the internet shows that there is a stark difference between the two. The internet is not made out of the matter that servers and electronic devices are made of; it is a digital world projected by electronics. As such, cyberspace is metaphysically distinct from the physical world that it springs from when certain kinds of technology are active.
No one needs to know this is order to prove to themself that immaterial things could come from matter and vice versa. Realizing the logical possibility, or lack of inherent falsehood in the concept, of such things is all that is necessary for that. Neither does one need to even think about the ultimate metaphysics of the internet in order to use it and even reflect on other philosophically important issues surrounding it, like the epistemology of online information and the fact that immediately verifiable facts like purely logical truths and one's own mental states do not depend on any sort of technological, social, or sensory experiences. Nevertheless, the immateriality of cyberspace and its ramifications are still related to some highly important logical facts about metaphysics.
The immateriality of the internet and distinction between cyberspace and the physical technology behind it is directly analogous to the distinction between computer devices (which includes far more than just desktop and laptop computers even if tablets, smartphones, and gaming consoles are not usually called computers) and the software they run. Just as the internet is not a tangible thing made of matter even though it requires matter to create and use it, software, even software that does not involve internet access, is a nonphysical thing generated by matter. This pair alone shows that it is folly to believe it is impossible for matter and non-matter to interact, as they do so on a daily basis as minds dwell in bodies and as technology projects immaterial worlds of images and information.
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