Zombies: Do they have souls?

[sgrosse]

Been a while since i last posted on this forum. But I liked this question. As to the question of whether or not Zombie's have a soul I would have to say that in my opinion, no. If there is a soul, it probably does not have anything to do with your memory or your experiences. Your soul, again in my opinion, just is. It is something that is apart of all living things that has yet to be fully understood or explained. A zombie is devoid of all things. An empty vessal only driven by the need to eat(following Romeros rules here). All though they might show some signs of remembering things from there past life it is nothing more than an undamaged part of there brain kicking back to life for a short period of time. Zombies are not alive. If they are not alive, whatever it is that releases the soul kicks in upon death. The body reanimates a few minutes later as a walking corpse. Again this is all just in my opinion. Good evening to yall.

[JSPoole]

My belief(s): 28 Days/28 Weeks Later infected are still in possession of their souls (and yes, I define a soul as the eternal quintessential essence of what makes a self-aware being the individual he/she/it is, as well as being the expressing force of that uniqueness) So, the rage-virus infected of 28 Days/Weeks would still have their souls. There's no difference in this case between them and someone suffering from advanced rabies or a trauma-induced psychotic break. Brain damage is preventing any outward expression of the soul's influence, rendering it little more than a prisoner screaming for release from the horrific flesh-prison it's become trapped within. True Romero Zombies on the other hand, are devoid of souls IMO. At the moment of physical death the unquantified energy matrix that the metaphysically-termed "soul" is composed of has its ties to the flesh severed, allowing it to flee the body. I believe it is this process that provides the clear lines of demarcation between death and reanimation. Otherwise it would make just as much sense for every infected person who perishes to reanimate instantaneously. The rudimentary expression(s) of personality or memory that this sort of zombie sometimes demonstrates are a function of sporadic brain activity. Personally, I believe Romero-zombies are viral in nature, and that said virus is reactivating/maintaining isolated areas of the brain to aid in propagating itself through transmission to other hosts. No chemical process is perfect however, so sometimes the memory center gets a jolt meant for the area of the brain that interprets incoming sensory-stimuli. Big Daddy-like zombies can be explained by a strain of the virus naturally selecting for relevant memory-center activation. More simply, viruses evolve to increase ease of transmission. There are plenty of example of viruses in nature altering the behavior of the host organism for its own benefit. It is conceivable IMO that enough of the dead brain could be reactivated for the soulless zombie to comprehend rationally the state it was currently in. Such an abomination would be pitiable indeed. The old voodoo folklore deals in detail with the notion of zombies realizing they're dead and suffering mentally because of it. Which is the impetus behind the enraged attacks upon the Bokor who reanimated them if the black-magic practitioner's control slips. All of this danced around the issue you're driving at though, so I'll state my opinion and be done with it. The mind may be the physical seat of consciousness/self-awareness, but IMO it is only a physical construct to house the eternal essence that makes a human being a human being. Just my *belief* Great post Been a while since i last posted on this forum. But I liked this question. As to the question of whether or not Zombie's have a soul I would have to say that in my opinion, no. If there is a soul, it probably does not have anything to do with your memory or your experiences. Your soul, again in my opinion, just is. It is something that is apart of all living things that has yet to be fully understood or explained. A zombie is devoid of all things. An empty vessal only driven by the need to eat(following Romeros rules here). All though they might show some signs of remembering things from there past life it is nothing more than an undamaged part of there brain kicking back to life for a short period of time. Zombies are not alive. If they are not alive, whatever it is that releases the soul kicks in upon death. The body reanimates a few minutes later as a walking corpse. Again this is all just in my opinion. Good evening to yall. Some quality posts in this thread , with this and quite a few previous posts from others, and it does open up several avenues for discussion about zombies and how we see them.