Snow Crash State of Mind

In high school, I became very interested in philosophy, psychology, and current events. This was by way of a couple clubs I was involved in - Speech & Debate and Model UN. Yes, I am ashamed to admit I was one of those kids. The uber nerds, the try-hards, the Ivy-League wannabes. I even dressed the part, unnecessarily wearing (rather ugly) dress shirts to school because I thought “people will take me seriously”, which someone quoted me as saying in the yearbook.

deep cringe

The summer before college, I became interested in what I thought was neuroscience, but could probably be called “pop neuroscience”. Books like “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks, “Society of Mind” by Marvin Minsky, and “Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Chapra were read (and even annotated). Neuroscience will be my declared major in college, I decided.

Why this sudden change of heart? Why did I choose to read these books, when all my life previously, I had been a huge science and technology nerd? I had used computers constantly since a young age, and while I never went so far as to learn to program them, I was a techno-enthusiast. I liked math a lot too. So why didn’t I choose computer science or even engineering to study in college?

Somehow, the influence of the study of philosophy, politics, and current events via my club activity shifted my STEM-oriented inclinations along a more meta-axis - what was actually happening in my own mind? I wanted to find out, and what better way than to study that actual biological organ?

Alas, I would grow disappointed with my decision to study neuroscience quickly. Piles of chemistry and biology classes, along with stacks of flashcards to memorize for each subject left me worn out and disillusioned with my choice of major.

In the novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Hiro Protagonist encounters a gargoyle named Lagos. The gargoyle records any and all activities occurring around them, and transmits the data to a central database owned by the Central Intelligence Corporation, a privatized edition of the CIA. Upon noticing Lagos recording his every move, Hiro approaches Lagos and questions him. Lagos rebuffs him, and greasily tries to gain his favor by offering advice:

“You’re a hacker. That means you have deep structures to worry about, too.”

“Deep structures?”

“Neurolinguistic pathways in your brain. Remember the first time you learned binary code?”

“Sure.”

“You were forming pathways in your brain. Deep structures. Your nerves grow new connections as you use them - the axons split and push their ways between the dividing glial cells - your bioware self-modifies - the software becomes part of the hardware. So now you’re vulnerable - all hackers are vulnerable - to a nam-shub. We have to look out for each other.”

“What’s a nam-shub? Why am I vulnerable to it?”

“Just don’t stare into any bitmaps. Anyone try to show you a raw bitmap lately? Like, in the Metaverse¹?”

Before getting into why I just quoted a highly indecipherable book with extremely convoluted analogies, let me set the scene. It is 2014, and I am in graduate school for biomedical engineering. Having determined that biological sciences were not my forte, I made a late pivot to study engineering finally. Specifically, I wanted to study computer science, but the graduate programs I contacted told me to apply after getting another 4-year bachelor’s degree, but in computer science instead.

That wasn’t happening. I decided that biomedical engineering was the closest I can get, and searched for schools which would accept a lowly neuroscience major with a middling GPA. Two schools took me up on that offer. One was quite good and quite expensive, and the other was inexpensive and average. I chose the latter.

In graduate school, I made every effort to study math and computer science at every opportunity, despite the title of my degree. In fact, I only took four classes that could be considered biomedical engineering, in my entire 2.5 years in graduate school. The lessened financial pressure of the degree helped me focus on my actual schoolwork, rather than panicking about bills. It also helps that I was able to live at home for the majority of my graduate education.

We’re getting back to Snow Crash soon, and to get there we need to explore another experience I had at this time. I worked as a barista at Starbucks by day, and by evening I would peruse the /r/starbucks subreddit, itself its own text-based metaverse. Here, I opted an alter ego as a manic Starbucks employee working at an insane company, with zealous passion for the store. Here is one story written by that persona:

“Bling!!!!”

“Thanking you for visiting StrawBucks this eve! What you say?”

Jayson parking at the speakmotron at his favorite StrawBucks on Grand Ale Thing Avenue. Jayson hearing his favorite batista, teenagerOz, through the speakmotron. He is recently awakening from anti-awake and is thusly with anti-alert. The menuboarddisplaytron signalling a “Creme de la Caramel Frappcianno”, but this will not do. Oh no.

Jayson inquiring, with politely obvious, “With needing more alert. teenagerOz, what is the recommendation?”

teenagerOz, with obvious a very passiontea barista, exclaiming, “Of course! The espressoment offering a mildly amount of awake, but I highly recommending with politeness the iced coffees with many sugar liquid syrup substitutions”.

Jayson very pleased, and pushing his whirmotron forth into the nethers. This be the moment teenagerOz preparing for his entirety life! With loving, teenagerOz preparing the joyous concoction as follows (please be warned, proprietary StrawBucks secrets follow):

1. Retrieval of the Iced Venti Cup (location 29, plexi 5)
2. Pummpings of the following - 8TN8H4V8CP
3. Dispensary of 28 mL Holy Mermaid Iced Coffee Liquid
4. Additions of Oprah Cream
5. Icements, via the Icemakerbin 25 (with obvious)
6. Holy whipps, said to be freshest from the summit of Mt Rainier teenagerOz handings off the drinks, salutationing, “Having an excellent days Jayson!”, and returnings to dayworks. These are the times and days that teenagerOz lives for. This be his true love, his joy - his passiontea.

After receiving an unnecessary number of upvotes, one person replied:

You seem like someone heavily influenced by Snow Crash.

I had never heard of, or read this book. I ordered the book on Amazon and promptly placed it on a bookshelf, where it remains to this day.

I did not come across this book again for more than ten years, but it always was lurking in the back of my mind. What was Snow Crash? What does that phrase even mean? Serendipitously, I encountered another copy of this book, in its physical form, while on a walk before a blizzard last week. A nearby elementary school had closed, and on its property was one of those mini-libraries in a tiny house mounted on a post. Usually, I walk right past these fixtures, but something compelled me to take a closer look that day. I could sense something beckoning from within.

I lazily read a few titles, when I saw it. Snow Crash. That legendary book, which I failed to read ten years ago. I took the book and quickly walked back home. After dinner, I opened the book and began to read.

Within one chapter, I recognized the writing style. It was me. Somehow Neal Stephenson and I had come across the same style of writing - heavy with made-up jargon and words, yet somehow perfectly coherent if one suspends judgment and belief. That comment from the Starbucks metaverse suddenly rang true - I had inadvertently channeled Neal Stephenson in my extracurricular fiction writing ².

At this point of the writing, I am invariably struck by writer’s block. I did not plan the subject matter of this blog post well, and have no thesis. Frustrated, I plugged in all that I’ve written so far into Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and ask for it’s recommendation. It suggests the following:

The thesis appears to be an exploration of self-understanding through the lens of coincidence and intellectual development, particularly how our minds can form connections and patterns even without conscious awareness. This is ironically reinforced by the “Snow Crash” quote about “deep structures” and neural pathways, which ties back to the author’s original interest in neuroscience. The title “Snow Crash State of Mind” directly supports this interpretation - it’s a meta-analysis of the author’s intellectual development and the unconscious influences that shaped their thinking and writing style.

That sounds…reasonable. So this is all just a bit of navel-gazing, a messy anecdote scattered across ten years, involving anonymous actors (including myself on the Starbucks subreddit). The theme to all this hasn’t crystallized yet. I suspect the ending to Snow Crash³ may also offer some resolution to this story as well. I’ll need to write a part 2 after I finish the book.