Snow Crash - Sumerian Mythology

[Nick, Founder (In Absentia)]

Was anyone else interested in the way Sumerian mythology was tied into the plot? I'm 64% into the book (according to my trusty Clie that I am reading it on) and I've loved this aspect. Anyone else?

[Robert]

I am a sucker for ancient myths and legends, so I was drawn right into the Sumerian aspect of the story, and the nature of how it fit.

[Meghan]

I finally got to this section (I'm sorry, but for some reason I am really having a slow time reading this book. I like it but I just can't read more than a chapter at a time.) Anyway, I think it's really interesting all the different relationships he's strung together with computers and ancient mythology.

An interesting coincidence--the other book I'm reading now is Foucault's Pendulum and I just finished a section on the biblical story of Babel and how in Hebrew "bab" means gate and "el" means god so Babel actually means gate to God and how the bible is full of puns. It was kind of weird how both books were dealing with the same subject at the same time I was reading them.

[The other John]

I thought it was a great part of the book. I enjoyed how Stephenson made connections between the ancient and cyber cultures, putting his own spin on history. It appealed both to the SF geek and the historian in me.

[KristenR]

I liked the Sumerian mythology, and I liked how it fit in the main storyline, but I had a hard time conceptualizing it as a biological virus. I completely got the whole sociological/religious aspect, but I couldn't seem to make the literal virus concept make sense.

[Robert]

Think about it like Lyme Disease. Lyme disease can go undetected for very long periods of time, years even, and it can affect the behavior of a person. In some cases, people with Lyme Disease can have neurological symptoms, such as changes in mood, attitude, sleep disturbances, and even memory loss (thanks Wikipedia!). I believe there are other physiological diseases that can have similar side effects, too.

So the ancient Sumerian Asherah Virus most likely targeted centers of the brain that affected similar aspects of a person: mood, memory, and attitude. This three things can in turn affect things like behavior, development, self control, and will power.

[Ed]

I had that same problem--conceiving it as a biological virus but Robert's comment makes sense.

[Robert]

"Virus" has many meanings, though. There are three distinct kinds of virus, maybe four, and Stephenson without doubt knows of them all.

a) A physical virus carries little bits of DNA or RNA into cells that divert the cell into making proteins and/or more copies of the virus. The proteins could conceivably alter behavior or even the genetic makeup of the host. Certain viruses, e.g. HIV, Herpes, Chicken Pox, can enter a cell and lie dormant for years until something happens to "activate" it at which point it expresses itself once again and you get shingles.

b) A computer virus that carries little bits of code into programs that divert the programs into making more copies of the code bits. Again, they can alter host behavior, they can lie dormant for years until a trigger or timer activates them.

c) A memetic virus that carries little bits of sociological cultural "code" into humans that divert the humans into making more copies of the memes by transmitting them to other humans. Examples abound and range from religious heresies to the Beatles.

d) A licensing "virus" that lies halfway between b and c -- e.g. the Gnu Public License, which has a "viral" clause that propagates itself by entailing all the code that it protects so that it is "inherited" by any program that reuses any of protected code.

In all cases they are self-replicating information, with side effects (just like life itself) but are pernicious and parasitic. It is interesting to imagine a memetic virus that could be "irresistably" transmitted and that would "change the mind" of anyone who received it subject to some trigger, sort of the way hypnosis works in various movies, or a licensing "virus" buried in our DNA (90% of which is "fossil" and doesn't ever get expressed, IIRC).

In the case of humans, one can imagine a virus that works on all of these levels at once -- a licensing virus with a memetic trigger that replicates and transmits as a biological virus as well as altering behavior to recreate various transmissible memes.

Sumeria is particularly interesting in the context of memetic evolution as it is the source of some of the oldest recorded documents, e.g. the Epic of Gilgamesh (which I've read in several translations at this point researching for Lilith). Sumerian mythology was the basis for the creation myths in the Old Testament, which in turn was the basis for the New Testament, which in turn conquered Rome and co-opted the Roman Empire to spread its memes throughout the world, where they evolved into Protestantism (and a dozen or more viral strains) and Western Democracy. We are the direct inheritors in every sense of the information world from the Sumerians -- we carry their memes, their genes. One might well imagine a physical virus crafted to "activate" structures buried deep within either aspects of who we are, or for that matter a higher order memetic virus that is just counting down, biding its time.

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[Nick, Founder (In Absentia)]

Memetic virus reminds me of the concept of memes online. Interesting how they spread. From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

A meme (pronounced /miːm/) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus. As a unit of cultural evolution, a meme in some ways resembles a gene. Richard Dawkins, in his book, The Selfish Gene,[1] recounts how and why he coined the term meme to describe how one might extend Darwinian principles to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. He gave as examples tunes, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing-fashions, ways of making pots, and the technology of building arches.

[Robert]

At your convenience, read The Lucifer Principle. One of the best books. Period. Bloom isn't a "real scientist" but his argument is overwhelmingly plausible. In fact, I think it is the truth.

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