<aside> ⚠️ Light spoilers

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I picked up Snow Crash in an attempt to better understand the metaverse (a term which Stephenson coined!). Metaverse is in vogue right now, in no small part due to Mark Zuckerberg, and I think sci-fi is a good source of speculation for potential future paths.

That said, the most interesting aspect of the book was not the metaverse stuff, but rather the discussion of mind viruses.

One of the key plot ideas is “neurolinguistic hacking” – the idea that we have deep neural circuits in our brains (inaccessible to our higher cognition) that can be “hacked” with the right stimulus. This thread about the programmability of the human mind – and thus the vulnerability of the human mind to “mind viruses” was utterly fascinating. It is masterfully weaved with Sumerian mythology and ancient history: in Stephenson’s semi-fictional view, the story of the Tower of Babel (in which the Lord caused everyone to speak different languages) could have been the product of a “mind virus”. It’s hard to know how much of this is pure fiction, as opposed to genuine left-field speculation on historical events, but in either case, it is absolutely delightful – feels vaguely similar to the mysterious and conspiratorial reinterpretations of the historical evidence that constitute the only redeeming feature of Dan Brown novels (see e.g The Da Vinci Code).

A core theme of Snow Crash is that the metaverse can affect reality – a mind virus caught in the metaverse can cause the operating system of the brain to crash. While perhaps too fanciful, this is certainly more applicable than ever: arguably social media companies, having poured vast sums of money into psychological research, have already figured out how to hack into our subconscious. It’s scary to think about what they could achieve if they controlled ever more sensory input.

While the ideas in Snow Crash are intricate and fascinating, the novel is pretty bizarre. There are several story arcs that are just weird and out-of-place (e.g the affair between the 15yo protagonist and one of the main antagonists); the world-building feels clumsy at times (it is as confusing as that of Neuromancer without creating a vibe in the same way); the exposition of the ideas is very forced – Hiro converses with a digital librarian to figure everything out – though it’s strange for me to fault that because these library scenes were my favourite parts of the book. So it’s worth a read, but only if you’re interested in the funky neurolinguistic hacking concepts.

Key ideas

<aside> ⚠️ Heavy spoilers below

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The core argument of the book is rather intricate. I have done my best to sketch it out below. As I mention in the review above, I don’t know if there’s any validity to these ideas, but they are very interesting nonetheless!

• The brain contains deep neural structures for language processing.
• At some point in the distant past, we were infected by a metavirus that made us susceptible to new viruses. This was the Fall of Man from Paradise (many religions/cultures have some version of the fall)
  • perhaps this metavirus came as information from space, or perhaps it intrinsically evolves in a complex system
  • these viruses consist of both mind viruses and biological viruses – the two are closely related e.g herpes simplex actually modifies brain cells.
• Language shapes the brain. Sumerian was a structured and powerful language, so mind viruses were highly susceptible for people whose brains were shaped by Sumerian.
• Primitive societies were controlled by verbal “programs” called me, procedures that their neural substructures would follow algorithmically (e.g how to plant seeds).
  • these people weren’t conscious in the way that we are
  • these me are mind viruses – they get propagated and shared, due to the high susceptibility caused by the Sumerian language.
  • a Temple was a database of me, and the priest (en) would administrate these programs.
• Enki was the first “neurolinguistic hacker” – he understood how to tap into people’s deep language structures, and was thus able to program new me.

  • Enki wrote a countervirus called the nam-shub of Enki that broke humanity out of the program-execution rut, and in so doing, caused the Babel event.

    He realized that in order for the human race to advance, they had to be delivered from the grip of this viral civilization. “So he created the nam-shub of Enki, a countervirus that spread along the same routes as the me and the metavirus. It went into the deep structures of the brain and reprogrammed them. Henceforth, no one could understand the Sumerian language or any other deep structure-based language. Cut off from our common deep structures, we began to develop new languages that had nothing in common with each other. The me no longer worked and it was not possible to write new me. The further transmission of the metavirus was blocked.”

• The Asherah virus is a biological virus (similar to herpes simplex) that infects the cells of the brain stem, bringing the deep neural substructures closer to the surface, and making people more susceptible to me (mind viruses).
  • Enki’s Babel event created diversity in brain structures, increasing society’s robustness to viruses like Asherah
  • several thousand years later, the Deuteronomists weaponised the Hebrew language to fight against Asherah.
  • rational religions encouraged information hygiene (e.g carefully copying the Torah, insisting that the Quran is the exact word of God), needed to prevent the spread of Asherah
  • but Asherah kept resurging, e.g the Pharisees revived the strictly dogmatic Sumerian system; Pentecost – speaking in tongues – was another resurgence
• In the book, L. Bob Rife wants to spread the Asherah virus so he can control everyone using me. Hackers, who may be more resistant to the Asherah virus, can be neutralised with binary viruses.

Highlights

• Ancient history
• Cool worldbuilding and Metaverse stuff
• Linguistics
• Mind viruses
• Neurolinguistic hacking