Science behind Snow Crash

[Gabriel]

While reading I became really interested in the ideas behind all of the viruses, as well as Babel, and Snow Crash itself. I was wondering if anyone thinks there is a way this can be applied to the real, phsical world.

[James]

google "meme theory" and read The Social Life of Information. More empirical evidence to be had for the crossover between digital and physical manifestation of viruses; worth investigation for sure. Right now might just be a linguistic treat, a metaphor at best.

[[deleted user]]

Memetics, as James mentioned, is very interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed The Electric Meme: A New Theory of How We Think.

Lindenmayer Systems (The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants) and Genetic Algorithms (An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms) are fascinating topics for similar reasons and have a more real-world application.

[Nottyboy]

I didn't buy the whole language as a virus angle in the book. No one is going to be infected with a mind 'virus' by reading binary code. That makes no sense from a memetics or even software perspective.

[Ian]

I think some of the Sumerian stuff might be based on Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which posits a fascinating theory that no one really takes that seriously.