pz@apple.com (Peter Zukoski) (11/16/89)
Hi - I recently received a request from Richard Dawkins (A zoology professor at Cambridge, author of the "Blind Watchmaker" which is a summary of Darwinian evolution, and the software which helps one understand the power of slight mutations coupled with huge numbers of generations.) for information about computer viruses. Following is his request. He doesn't have access to the interNet, so please send any responses to me, even if this prompts a discussion in this group, as I don't normally read it and wouldn't want to miss anything pertinent. Please mention/send any past discussion of these issues which you might have lying about as well. Thanks "Do what you want -- you will anyway." peterz pz@apple.com Bell: 408-974-2920 Snail: Apple Computer 20525 Mariani MS/76-3C Cupertino, CA 95014 - ---------- My interest is as follows: I want to develop a 3-way analogy between 'real' viruses, computer viruses, andviruses of the mind. To give the idea, I'm pasting in the following draftproposal for a BBC television program that nearly appeared with me as Presenter(in the end the project was shelved, but I now want to pursue the idea further anyway). "PROPOSAL FOR TV PROGRAM: VIRUSES OF THE MIND Three kinds of virus. In all three cases there is information-handling machinery as a sitting target for parasitic self-replicating information or 'viruses'. 1. 'Real' viruses, made of DNA or RNA. They are almost pure information, digital information just like in computers. They use the reading and translating machinery provided by hosts. Build up a picture of host cellular machinery as a sitting target for viruses, rather like a room full of information-handling equipment - xeroxes, teleprinters, computers and so on. The machinery is all there, vulnerable to being exploited. It is good at handling DNA, almost eager to handle DNA, copy it, splice it in, decode it, build the proteins specified by the DNA code. Viral information is like a computer program whose only real purpose is to make copies of itself. The protein jacket etc is just the apparatus needed to propagate copies of the information specifying it. Actually, that is true of all living bodies too (the central message of The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype), but it is particularly stark for viruses. And the special point about viruses is that they use other organi sms' handling machinery. Viruses are propagated through the air (common cold), through saliva (rabies) or other bodily fluids (AIDS). 2. Computer viruses. These are computer programs, written by malicious individuals, whose essential purpose is simply to make copies of themselves. They may also, like 'real' viruses, have deleterious effects upon the host. For instance some viruses delete files at random from the hard disc. Once again we have the same picture of information-handling machinery as a sitting target for parasitic information. Computers are so good at handling information, so powerful at doing what programs tell them to do, that they are, in a sense, asking for trouble, asking to be the victim of malicious, self-replicating information. Computer viruses are propagated by borrowed or pirated floppy discs, over e-mail networks and so on. Unknown before 1980s, they are now alarmingly common. My own hard disc picked up an infection last year and it was a sinister and eerie sensation. 3. Mind viruses. Human minds, too, consist of sophisticated information-processing machinery, like computers and like the DNA-processing machinery of cells. Once again, because of its normal information-processing functions, it is a sitting target for 'viruses'; it is vulnerable to being invaded and taken over by malicious self-copying programs. In this case they propagate themselves via word of mouth, print, television etc. I think the best examples (in the sense of most strongly resembling the other kinds of virus) are to be found in religion, especially the kinds of fundamentalist religion that have become so prominent in the 80s. People actually use the word 'possessed' for the state of being taken over by one of these influences. I suspect that we could actually find film of people in religious trances whose behaviour would strongly resemble the behaviour of people mentally ill with a brain virus. Even if not literally the same, I think that the analogy between the three kinds of virus could be put across convincingly, emphasizing especially fundamentalist faith as an infectious disease of the mind. My own experience of getting letters from religious people (especially in Northern Ireland) after my article in Daily Telegraph forcibly made me think of the behaviour of computers infected by a virus. In particular, there is the weird phenomenon of quoting scriptural verses. These people had read my article, so ought to realise that I'd be unmoved by biblical quotations. Yet their own mind is so taken over by the 'operating system' that is programmed to accept every word of the bible that they cannot conceive of another mind not instantly succumbing to the same thing." So, I'm really after any studies of the details of how computer viruses spread that lend support to the thesis described in the above proposal. Best wishes Richard - ----------------------- Thanks