Zombies and the 7 Characteristics of Life

Zombies are called the ‘living dead.’  So, which one is it?  Are they more alive or are they more dead?  Traditionally described as a re-animated corpse, how does this ‘re-animation’ affect the vitality of a zombie?  Zombies have putrefied insides, decaying flesh and no heartbeat, but somehow they still manage to have heightened senses and a staggering form of locomotion. 

In Undead is the New Green, Foucault says that there is a “historical variability of life and its capacity to be redefined with changes in human social structure.”  Zombies have diffused there way into pop culture, the judicial system and even religion.  Given their incredible popularity and status as a cultural icon, is it not time to redefine zombie life in terms of our modern day obsession. 

Richard Doyle describes the double movement where life explodes to re-emerge  as inorganic matter: “artificial life emerges out of a context in which quite literally, life disappears[….]Microscopic life might be defined locally once we have decided on the boundaries of our context, but does not exist in ‘itself’ apart from any context.” 

If life is merely contextual, then a new context could provide new meaning to the definition of life.  If and when the Zombie apocalypse happens, we will be face to face with an undefined paradox.  ‘The Living Dead,’ is such an ambiguaosly terrifying term that still does little to define the blood thirsty monsters we have come to think we know so well.

What is life? What does it mean do be alive? How is something made “living”? These are all pertinent questions when discussing the origin of life. Scientists have identified seven basic characteristics of life.

All living things are…..

Composed of Cells

Cells are the basic components of all living things. Some organisms are single- celled, like bacteria, or multi-celled, like humans. Zombies are most definitely composed of cells, but are the cells living and dividing?  Some zombies appear to be pretty disfigured with horrible flesh wounds.  That would suggest that the cells are not dividing and the skin is not healing.

Require Energy

Living organisms require energy, usually in the form of ATP. They use this energy to carry out energy-requiring activities such as metabolism and locomotion.  Zombies need to eat flesh and brains or else they appear to become weaker and more skeletal.   What is in blood that is an essential life force for zombies?

Reproduce

All living organisms reproduce, either by sexual or asexual means. What if zombies were asexual?!?!? If a zombie underwent binary fission every 20 minutes you could use calculus to solve an exponential growth model and determine that in 6.64 hours there would be 1 million zombies.

But really…can zombies reproduce?  Well, in the film Dead Alive, there is a small bow chika wow wow scene between zombies.  And in Dawn of the Dead a woman gives birth to a zombie!

Display Heredity

Living organisms inherit traits from the parent organisms that created them.  Slow, fast, smart, dumb, emotion, no emotion.  Clearly not all zombies were created equal.  I would say there is high heterogeneity amongst zombie populations.  And natural selection will probably  only allow the  best zombies to survive.  Thank you Charles Darwin.

Respond to Stimuli

All living things respond to stimuli in their environment. As seen in the Walking Dead loud noises, like gunshots or car alarms attract zombies.  If a zombie smells/sees/hears a living human they seem to start to walk faster toward that said living human.

Evolve and Adapt

Living organisms adapt to their environment and evolve. Anybody see Land of the Dead?  Zombies learn how to use guns!  They start to strategize against the greedy humans!  One zombie successfully crosses a body of water and then the rest follow.

Maintain Homeostasis

All living things maintain a state of internal balance.  I would have to sit a zombie down and take his/her temperature to get a sense of this.  The warm, living human body is typically 37 degrees Celsius and a dead body loses 1.5 degrees every hour.  So…do zombies just get colder and colder? 

So according to these seven characteristics are zombies alive or dead?  I really just want to say ‘To Be Determined’ and let the paradox live on….BUT I owe it to the scientific community to make a decision.  The verdict: DEAD!

What are your thoughts fellow zombie investigators/enthusiasts????