Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Can zombies learn?

Are zombies capable of grasping knowledge or just walk around aimlessly feeding?  In The Zombie Autopsies by Dr. Steven Scholoman, the virus deteriorates the the brain down to the amygdala which controls the fight-or-flight response. Zombies just happen to always choose the fight response because ventromidial hypothalamus (the part that tells you when your stomach is full) is destroyed so they are always hungry.  The part of the brain responsible for problem solving, the frontal lobe, is also destroyed as well as the cerebellum which control motor skills. All in all you get an individual who can't move very well, can't communicate, doesn't recognize anyone and is hungry all the time.
The T-virus from the movie Resident Evil destroys pretty much all of the brain except for the cerebellum and brain stem. Basically this reverts a person back to the most primal state with poor motor skills. I guess when you break a person down, the only thing they really know is that they have to eat to survive. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that you can't really learn anything without a brain. However if you can remember the instinct to feed then is there a possibility that you can remember other things.
In the 1985 film, Day of the Dead, Dr Logan believe that zombies can become domesticated and achieves this with a zombie he calls Bub. Bub seems to remember parts of its former life and certain objects. One of the soldiers becomes outraged and kills one of the doctors, Bub sees this and appears to become upset and even sheds a tear.
They touch base on this again in The Land of the Dead, 2005. The zombies in town seem to remember their former lives. They can be seen playing instruments and operating gas pumps, although not very well. A particular zombie named "Big Daddy" is seen getting upset at the sight of his fellow zombies getting killed (or rekilled I guess you could say) and eventually learns to use firearms.  He teaches his fellow undead to use weapons and eventually the go for revenge.
I can't say I like the thought of zombies being able to learn, it kinda takes away from the whole primal and basic nature of them however it would definitely be a game changer for survival.

2 comments:

  1. If there was such a virus to revert a human to a basic primal state, I imagine they would crawl instead of walk. Crawl and moan like a hungry baby.

    There have been a lot of movies to entertain the concept of zombies learning. Yep most handled this horribly, but there is one horrible zombie flick that actually did a great job of at least zombies remembering things about its former life. That movie is Survival of the Dead.

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    1. Since you mentioned Survival of the Dead I figured I would pull it out of my collection and watch it this evening. That was definitely the best attempt at teaching the undead. Even with their limited success at teaching them to eat things other than people I don't think anyone would feel comfortable living among zombies.

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