GAR Intelligent Zombies - Bub vs. Big Daddy

[krakenslayer]

There's no mention of a virus in the GAR films (apart from Dawn, where you can hear them clutching at straws on TV). To get a little sidetracked - a virus is a very unlikely candidate in a zombie outbreak: they're just clumps of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat. It is a completely non-cellular entity and a lot of biologists don't even consider viruses to be "life" as we might understand it. They attach themselves to cells, inject their own genetic material, turning the cell into a factory that makes clones of the virus, and this kills the cell. The effects a virus has on a body are caused by either the cells being killed off in this way or are symptoms of the immune system trying to fight it off. A virus, by definition, would have no effect on dead tissue. A strain of bacteria or a fungus or other single celled life-form is a more likely candidate, because of their more complex biology. The existence of "smart zombies" in Romero's films seem to be allowed for by the following facts of his universe: 1) Decomposition is more or less stopped just after death, 2) Death causes the individual to lose a lot of their more fine-tuned processes, probably due in part to oxygen starvation and disintegration of the frontal lobe in the brief period of "actual death", 3) The zombies are able, over time, to re-learn a few of their lost functions in a very limited fashion, just like a stroke victim re-learning to speak despite her Broca's Area, the speech centre of the brain, being destroyed (undamaged cells "re-specialise" and start to compensate for the dead zones), 4) This recovery of function takes considerable time and varies in the extent to which it occurs, like with the stroke victim example. EDIT: Man, I just came across as such a smart-arse, sorry bout that.

[darth los]

While the gist of this arguement is about the relative intelligence of the Living Dead themselves, wouldn't the evolution of zombie intelligence actually be the mutation of the virus that caused the Dead to rise in the first place? Any virus is a living entity, and Virus Z (or Solarium, or Morningstar) works by attaching itself to the brain of it's host/victim. It primarily clusters around the motor function portions of the Human brain (including the aggressive Reptle, or "R-factor", portion of the brain). What we call a "zombie" is merely the vehicle for the virus to travel and spread (through a bite) and survive. By the time of Land, the virus may have mutated to other portions of the dormant brain. We've seen basic tool use and other learned/remembered behaviors since Night, why couldn't the virus develop some resemblance of 'higher brain function' as a means of improving it's chances of survival? The virus already seems to slow the decomposition process in the body, would it do the same with the head meat? If it does, that would keep the more advanced portions of the brain preserved. I'm no Brain Scientist (not much of a Rocket Surgeon, either), but it seems the argument of "Zombie Intelligence" must go to the root of the problem - the Virus Itself. It is a living organism fighting to survive. It will mutate, adapt & evolve in order to do so. In which of GAR's dead movies is it disclosed that the cause is a virus? I dont recall.. Virus', Radiation, voodoo among other things, have been speculated upon in the films but a definite cause was never found.

[Trin]

What if Big Daddy isn't actually an "intelligent" zombie? What if he's simply the zombie exposed to a more complex series of sensory stimuli? Isn't it possible we're projecting our human bias onto a situation easily mistaken for thought-driven action, that was instead simply the tumbling of more dominoes than usual into each other? The difficulty lies in assigning stimuli to his observed behaviors. He screams. Why? He's not injured. Is there a cause/effect rationale for empathy? He pursues the humans. Why? He's not following them because they are meat. He doesn't eat them. In fact, he interrupts his fellow zombies when they start eating humans at the motor pool. So is he simply defending his territory against a foreign invader? If so, why does he stop killing when he's done with Kaufman? How did he even know Kaufman was the leader and his real enemy? Big Daddy walked away from Dead Reckoning - the instrument that decimated Uniontown. Why? How did he know that Riley and DR were not the real threat? That's a lot of unexplainable behavior. I do agree that your run of the mill zombie is neither good nor evil and ascribing such terms is us trying to make more out of their behavior than what it is. On the other hand, Bub thrasing the chain around upon seeing Logan dead - that's well beyond cause/effect instinct driven behavior. It's a hazy, indistinct line..the boundary between complex instinct and simple thought. Maybe just a philosophical one, but I thought it was an interesting take on "Intelligent Zombies". I agree that it's an indistinct line. On the one hand, a squirrel going after a bird feeder is near impossible to thwart. Squirrels just figure stuff out. Is that abstract thinking? On the other hand I get hungry - I eat. I see a hot chick - I trip all over myself trying to impress her. That sure seems like cause/effect stimulus. So where do you decide that a level of complex behavior crosses the boundary from cause/effect stimulus into abstract thought? And can you really separate animals and humans into categories whereby one has abstract thought and the other does not? And where does emotional behavior fit in? If my cat becomes visibly depressed when I am away for a week is that higher function? The behaviors associated with depression do not make sense from a cause/effect sense. Bub thrashing his chain around when he sees Logan dead is not an effect caused by that stimulus. It's not mimicked behavior. He has an emotional response. If you look at zombies as brain damaged humans do they further blur the line? If we believe Logan and they are us only functioning less perfectly then do we need to allow for abstract thought regardless of what an animal is capable of? And have we completely lost Andy? Is he sitting at his comp going "Big Daddy doesn't exist...na na na na I can't hear you"?

[Andy]

And have we completely lost Andy? Is he sitting at his comp going "Big Daddy doesn't exist...na na na na I can't hear you"? http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/s...ad.php?t=15195 This link should provide some insight into my feelings about that movie. You will not get me to admit there is anything worthwhile about it at all, better men have tried and failed.

[Thorn]

Yeah, I feel no pity or understanding for zombies. Period. Nope me either, I hate zombies. Never want to play one in any of the zombie games I play. Never identify with them, never cheer them on not even when they killed Rhodes. He was scum, but he was human. Zombies are disgusting, vile murdering, undead things that would eat your children without thought or remorse. There is no good zombie in my opinion. At the end of land, I do not understand the line Riley utters about them just trying to find a place to go or whatever. The hell with that, the killed and slaughtered people. They need to be eradicated. Now if you are going to say 'This is an evolution of the "species" they are not violent or warring, they are now civilized and are moving on. Please spare me, just because an native tribe comes in and steals your woman and children killing your men in the process and then flees... this does not mean the hostility is over or that they or some other band will not be back. Nah I have too strong feelings of dislike for zombies to ever view them in a sympathetic way.

[Wyldwraith]

Trin, I define true intelligence as such brain activity requiring any or all of these three factors to be realized: 1) Self-Awareness. The entity is capable of thought constructs, however rudimentary, in which it contemplates/otherwise affirms the fact it exists. Part and parcel of this awareness IMO is a basic sense of time, at least insofar as it relates to the self. The self-aware can conceive of a time before their existence began, of the time(s) during which their existence is occurring, and of some point in the future where they will no longer exist/be alive. 2) Ability to shape an agenda independent of basic causal activity. A zombie that went after a human who jogs into their field of view while they've been standing in place for who knows how long is simply reacting causally. On the other hand, if that ghoul were to generate some sort of basic thought-construct that began with their desiring warm human flesh and then set out to satiate that hunger by finding, bringing down and feasting on a human being, all when it hasn't even physically seen a human for some time, that would be consistent with an act of intelligent premeditation. Which leads me to the last of my three core factors. 3) Goal-setting. No further need to elaborate on this one. If an entity can act in furtherance of a formed agenda, such action is an expression of intelligence. No, I don't really believe that as depicted, GAR zombies fulfill any, let alone all of these three criteria. Well, that's not *precisely* true. Suffice to say that I'm open to the idea that the rare ghoul may demonstrate one of these three criteria, but none will display all three. Another thing: Have considered this issue a lot, and like a previous poster I've come to the conclusion that some other form of microorganism than a virus is the likely culprit of the zombie's infamously infectious bite. Bacteria I ruled out for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the anaerobic environment that much of a dead body would become. Also, however exotic, I find it difficult to believe that the scientists we see studying the zombie problem in Day would be stumped as to the cause if it were a bacterial infection. Out of the various types of microorganisms that assail man, bacteria are among the easiest to detect and destroy. My current guess is a microscopic parasite of some sort. Fungus or Mold don't seem like they'd have the virulence to down an otherwise healthy individual who had the skin of their arm broken by a couple zombie teeth during a grazing bite. Plus, molds tend to be EXTREMELY HARD on their host location/entity. I just don't see mold actually retarding the process of decay. Just a few thoughts, your mileage may vary. Some very thought-provoking posts recently.

[wayzim]

Virus', Radiation, voodoo among other things, have been speculated upon in the films but a definite cause was never found. This was part of the deconstruction ploy which George was about, largely to make a memorable little movie. The Sci-Fi/Horror films before this almost always had a cause, or some Gee Whiz super scientist to give comfort to the audience. Turning these conventions on their heads was why the original NOTLD was interesting. Wayne Z

[Philly_SWAT]

EDIT: Man, I just came across as such a smart-arse, sorry bout that. I cant speak for everyone, but to me you did not come across as a smart-ass but a knowledgeable guy presenting logical, compelling arguments. I don't have much information in this particular area to know whether you are full of shit or not, but in either case it sounded good!

[Trin]

@kraken - I agree with Philly, your post was fine, well written, articulate, and intelligent. @Wyldwraith - I think your criteria for intelligence ruled out half the posters, but may still allow room for Big Daddy. Regarding zombie sympathy - I might make arguments regarding zombies being intelligent or worthy of pity/sympathy, but in the end that's an existence too piteous to allow (like being a Mac user) or too dangerous since you really just never know when one of these things is gonna decide to bite you. I don't care much about whether they can evolve or not - they shouldn't be allowed the opportunity. I also agree with Andy in a large part - the whole premise of Land, Big Daddy, and zombie evolution should've never been allowed to make it to the screen. Bub was as far as it shoulda gone, and maybe too far looking back.

[Wyldwraith]

@Trin: I agree that quantifying the emotional reactions of Bub and BD in a manner that squares with everything else we're shown of the "zombie condition" is extremely difficult, since they're almost depicted in an "Exception that proves the rule" sort of light. However, I do NOT consider simply having an emotional reaction based on what's transpiring within your field of observation is a sign of intelligence. By definition, emotion is irrational, making it far more akin to instinct than thought. Going back to your example of your cat becoming depressed in your absence. One could simply argue that this highly socialized feline (high degrees of socialization being the rule in well-treated pet cats and dogs) is as a consequence of that socialization experiencing anxiety and an aimless sort of apathetic confusion when confronted by the loss of positive stimuli it had become accustomed to, Ie: Your company, stroking its fur, feeding it treats etc. While I am certainly not saying that animals, particularly those known to possess exceptionally developed brains, are without real emotion. I'm simply saying that the existence of that emotion is not a signpost leading us to the conclusion that they think as we think. Or, to go on to your examples that used yourself as the subject. Particularly the one involving your attempt to impress an attractive woman. Hard-wired instinct at its finest, that. In this case instinct exists alongside reason, not in an either/or scenario. Which I suppose proves your point, that animals have "thoughts" on some level, which are independent of instinct. I would even go so far as to say that this could even be the case for the occasional GAR zombie, however much most of us wish he'd never gone that route. Again though, thought *of some sort* and intelligence are not necessarily indicative of each other's existence. Bub might have been having a socialized animal-like response to the death of its keeper. Emotion certainly, thought/perception enough to understand on some level what had happened to trigger that emotion, sure. Internal awareness by Bub of why Bub felt the way he did upon seeing a dead Logan? NO WAY. If GAR ever goes as far as the clearly self-aware zombie, I'll be finished with his work. My dislike of a movie of his (with the exception of Diary simply being craptastic just because), is almost always proportional to the presence of an "intelligent zombie". Which is why Dawn is my favorite, followed by Night, and Day and Land are tied for 3rd. What did you think about my assessment as to the probable microorganism involved in transmission of the "zombie plague"?

[Trin]

Good observations Wyldwraith. I don't have a strong opinion on whether emotion in general is a sign of higher thinking or intelligence, as in my cat example. I just thought it was fun to add emotion to the conversation. In the case of Bub thrashing the chain it's not really the emotional response that intrigues me so much as the understanding required to have the emotional response. When Bub sees Logan dead he reacts with grief followed by anger. Think about what has to happen for that. He has to realize and understand that Logan is dead. It may seem simple, but isn't it rather impressive that Bub knows what death is? That he recognizes it on sight? Going further, Bub realizes that Logan's death is a tragedy for him and that it has implications for him. Somehow he deduces that the soldiers are to blame. He takes action based on Logan's death. I don't know how that factors into "self-aware". I don't know if Bub was "internally aware" of how and why he felt that way. I don't know if I'm internally aware of where my emotions come from either. In my view of the zombie intelligence debate I don't care. The fact that Bub made all those leaps of intuition or deduction or whatever - the result is the same. Bub's intellect was enough to make him a threat. The same goes tenfold for Big Daddy. My computer can beat me at chess. To my knowledge it is not self-aware nor does it have emotions. But if my continued survival relied on me outthinking my computer at chess I might as well start digging my grave. I think of zombies in the same way. If they can outsmart me enough to get inside my Fiddler's Green and set me on fire - I've lost. It's small comfort to know they weren't self-aware as they did it. Regarding the micro-organism debate. To be honest, I breeze over most of that talk. There are really two things that in my mind are inexplicable in the GAR universe and have to be chalked up to suspension of disbelief. Number one - the fact that the dead are reanimated. Number two - the fact that a zombie bite is 100% fatal. Number one - dead reanimation. The best I can come up with is that the earth is bombarded with a new and unique type of radiation that affects the brain of the dead. We know that radiation carries energy. We know that dead muscles and nerves can be excited to move. I can buy that the constant bombardment of the dead nervous system by an unknown and potentially highly powerful radiation is the cause and continued energy source for the reanimated dead. Number two - zombies bites are 100% fatal. I agree that bacteria is not the cause because it is too easy to detect. I will disagree on one minor point - some bacteria are nearly impossible to destroy (without killing the patient). But bacteria, viruses, and parasites all have a common problem. In order to pass them on you have to first become infected by them. In the case of a GAR ghoul dead bodies are infectious without a source. So somehow the dead body is producing the toxin after death. Maybe a better explanation is a nerve toxin. The radiation causes the nerves to excite and that changes the chemical makeup in the mouth of the ghoul. A nerve toxin results and when it is introduced into a living subject it throws off the chemical balance in the live tissue. A cascade effect occurs eventually killing the person. I don't know. But whatever the explanation it must allow for a perfectly healthy person who dies to become infectious.

[BillyRay]

When Bub sees Logan dead he reacts with grief followed by anger. Reading that a couple times, I've just realized, (regardless of any discussion of the hows & whys of Zombie inteligence) Wouldn't Bub's reaction to seeing Dr Logan's dead body be: "Yay! He's dead! Once he gets up, I can be dead together with my bestest friend in the world!" instead of grief?

[Trin]

Reading that a couple times, I've just realized, (regardless of any discussion of the hows & whys of Zombie inteligence) Wouldn't Bub's reaction to seeing Dr Logan's dead body be: "Yay! He's dead! Once he gets up, I can be dead together with my bestest friend in the world!" instead of grief? That is sooo funny. I thought that just the last time I watched Day specifically due to this thread. Combined with the, "Why doesn't Logan come back?" question. I think we've hashed through this before but I could never see any evidence of damage to Logan's head. Maybe Logan does come back after the events we see and the pair of them go wild making prank phone calls and playing jokes turning the lights off on the other zombies.

[Wyldwraith]

Hmm, @Trin once again: I'll admit I never considered the idea of radiation-as-cause in the context of the radioactive phenomena *continually* bombarding the Earth over a long period of time. Still not my favorite theory by a long shot, but that twist did provoke some interesting speculation for me, so kudos to you compadre. Something you mentioned about some bacteria. About how some are nearly impossible to kill without also killing the host. A good point, but automatically shot down by the Day scenario. Those scientists were working from the starting point that zombies are already 97.5+% of the population, so their goal was in essence to discover a means of eliminating huge numbers of zombies over large geographical areas with relative ease. Under those parameters, a pathogen whose resilience is based on the "You can't kill It without killing the infected individual" is no stumbling block at all. Had the scientists in Day uncovered a method of destroying whatever source-phenomena was responsible for the dead reanimating, the military and bunker-dwelling government-fragments would actually have been happier with a solution that terminated zombies that also eliminated doomed/dying humans who had been infected and aberrations like the rare (but potentially real) Typhoid-Mary-like passive carrier humans than a solution that only terminated actual zombies. However, we both seem to agree that bacteria are easy to detect with the right equipment, available specimens and microbiological know-how, so it must be something more exotic. BTW, the reason I'm re-hashing the speculation on the origin-source of GAR zombies is the direct tie-in/implications it may have for the idea of undead intelligence. Your mention of a nerve toxin rattled something loose in my gray matter. Red Tides. Poisonous plankton blooms responsible for occasionally making huge swathes of water appear much like the water-to-blood Exodus Plague/Divine Judgment vs Egypt. In the modern era we've learned that when certain conjunctions of various factors/events occur together, the water becomes saturated with a nasty neurotoxin that most often bothers humans when we consume filter-feeding shellfish whose nature makes them prone to becoming rapidly laden with the toxin of the red tide. Sort of like the microbiological equivalent of the Perfect Storm. What got me thinking about this was evolution. A stepping stone of biological adaptation for a variety of species when confronted with onslaughts of toxins/pathogens/parasites that aren't so deadly that they kill the entire affected population is to develop the capacity to carry large amounts of the substance/pathogen without harm. The point I'm laboring towards is this: If some species (like a type of tidal shellfish for example) developed the capacity to carry enormous amounts of the still-living microorganisms that cause the red tide(s) in their tissue for far longer than those red-tide microorganisms had previously persisted on their own, what you would have as a byproduct of evolutionary adaptation is the potential for possibly millions or tens of millions of bio-incubators. Each one of which potentially the impetus for the red-tide microbe(s) to themselves adapt/evolve/mutate as a consequence. Something like a Red Tide microbe that releases its toxin into the air as part of an altered life cycle. Given the vastness of the Earth's coastal areas/tidal flats, there's your continuous/ever-present toxin supply. If the stuff turned out to be relatively harmless to living humans, who world-wide rapidly become passive carriers of ever-increasing amounts of the microbe or chemicals produced by said microbe, since such a huge percentage of the world's population dwell in coastal or near-coastal areas. If said toxin/microbe were then to do interestingly horrifying things to the brains of the recently deceased, THAT I could buy....its an incredibly rough/off the cuff example, but I think it serves its purpose as illustration of another potential avenue that leads to zombies from dead bodies. Again, reason I spun all this out from whole cloth was to provide some kind of workable methodology for "undead intelligence". With a nigh-infinite potential for the evolution of microbial life, whose to say that an entirely unique form of consciousness couldn't develop? The mass-extinction-like events depicted so inevitably in long-term/large-scale survival horror @ zombie apocalypse scenarios leave out one element that has been nearly as constant as gravity in the history of the Earth in the wake of each of the great Extinctions. Ie: Evolution amongst the surviving life forms gets kicked into overdrive, ALWAYS resulting in a whole new ecosystem-wide paradigm. GAR gets hung up on portraying the extinction or near extinction of man as somehow being equivalent to the end of the world. When what could just as easily be zombies-as-catalyst to spur significant gains in evolutionary momentum amongst humans (should we survive), or some other species/series of species coming out on top of the evolutionary heap. Unfortunately, GAR keeps trying to heavy-handedly imply/preach/scream from the mountaintop that zombies should be considered amongst the species that might evolve under such titanic pressures. Ignoring entirely so much of his own best work as to completely miss the point that while zombies might kick-start the afterburners of evolution for others, or even cause massive environmental change to optimize the rate of evolution for a variety of species, zombies themselves are dead, stagnant, STATIC caricatures that are empty, unchangingly broken vessels. Apologies for the length and that I got ranty/redundant in places. Got all stream of consciousness inspired and just ran with it.

[Wyldwraith]

Damn, Didn't mean to kill the thread. My bad. Got slightly off track from the zombie intelligence discussion. My apologies. If someone would like to continue more on-point, think I'll just observe for a bit.