Zombies
There’s something about zombies that makes them the perfect genre to explore our apocalyptic fears and anxieties. Films about zombies seem to constantly reinvent the genre in new ways, whilst staying true to some core tenets. But how are zombies actually supposed to work and why are they so popular?
In this week’s episode, we discuss zombies with friend-of-the-podcast Mikey Lear. We discuss the etymology of the word zombie and the history of zombie films, the cordycep fungus, technozombism and the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. We ask whether AIs are zombies and Jordan presents his zombie survival plan. Finally, we share our favourite scenes from zombie films.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
- List of Zombie Films
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Zombies
- How the Zombie Represents America’s Deepest Fears
- The Evolution of the Zombie in Popular Culture
For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I am here with Nick Hare and Jordan Fermanis of Aleph Insights and friend of the podcast, Mikey Lear. And this week we're discussing zombies. Nick, kick us off and why have we got Mikey with us? Well, I'll get to that. So zombies, what are they all about? Why are they popular? And how are they actually supposed to work? So this was an idea that was contributed by a friend of the podcast called Mikey Lear. And because he's an expert on zombies, among other things, we thought it'd be good to bring him in and be on the podcast. Okay. So first of all, with the zombies and Mikey, welcome here. Thanks. You're looking well, which is a good start straight away. Feeling good. It's like a zombie. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Pretty jazzed to be here. My favourite podcast.
Speaker A: zombie was first recorded in: Speaker B: didn't we do it before early: Speaker A:and especially the fact it's low level. There's something about that that's really interesting. It's all OK. It's OK as long as you do certain things, but ultimately they will still get you. And I can't remember the flip thing, which is, you know, your mate flips to be a zombie. He's going
Speaker C:to kill you. But also, why now? Jordan, pick up wherever you are. I may have an answer for why now. I think because zombies play into our anxieties about the world. I think that's a key thing about zombies. And so I think at the moment we're presented with all kinds of global catastrophes like climate emergency, economic recessions, pandemics, all these sorts of things. Zombies, and they're all about the system breaking down. Zombies can, as though the zombie genre is a kind of safe place to explore those apocalyptic concerns, I would say. So zombie stories allow people the opportunity to witness the end of the world, something they're secretly fascinated about, but with the safety of knowing that it's fictional, that it's not actually going to happen. So I think whilst there is moral panics or great anxiety out there, the zombie genre will be a rich place to explore that. It was interesting, your initial
Speaker A:reaction to Mikey's question was, ah, but aliens. And so you've talked about why it might be now, which makes me wonder, well, what's next after zombies? But anyway, I think we do need to inject some data because we're all just assuming zombies are popular. And I'm here to tell you, it's not as simple as that. It's that simple. When do you think the first zombie film was?
Speaker B:1920 something. Yeah, close. I'm going to say it's Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Particular understanding of what a zombie is. Well, yeah, because you're going to say white
Speaker A: e zombies because it's set in: Speaker B:I think the second one is the one anyway. Well, so my I think those are what was the first one
Speaker A:again that they're universal and it's just they're just always there. If it's a universal fear,
Speaker B:then I'm fine with the idea that there's that zombie films were invented in recently and they've become a trend, but not fine with the idea that there wasn't some sort of equivalent. There's a universal fear in the old days. Where were the stories with low level? And I had to think about it. And I think Day of the Triffids and the Birds are potentially two bits of a fiction which are sort of. They're kind of zombie like. Basically zombie films, they have a low level consistent threat which you can run from, but you can't escape from.
Speaker A:You don't like any others. I mean, you're saying you don't like the War of the Worlds, for example, because the aliens are not low level. They're not individually dealable with. Yeah. Because you're still getting your apocalypse from that, aren't you?
Speaker B:Yeah. Apocalypse comes from the Bible. That's an old one.
Speaker A:Yeah. But the dead do, of course, rise from their graves in the Revelation of St. John.
Speaker B:But they're not a low level threat. It's not a modern zombie film.
Speaker A:Only because they've got the devil at the helm. What? I don't know. The dead people in the Book of Revelation. What do they do? They get judged then, don't they? Do they fight in a battle or something? I don't think so. But anyway, but also with War of the Worlds, there's something very external about what's going on, right? It's from out there. Whereas with even Day of the Triffids, which I don't think they come from space, the plants, it's around us already. And there's something about that, that it's already here and something changing from what it was into something else. I'm lost. We're lost. Where are we? We're walking not knowing where we're going zombie-like to an unknown destination. Yeah. I wonder if, I mean, if Mikey's right, we've discovered that zombies fill a needed gap. But I mean, you know, what about things like...
Speaker B:No, I'm saying it was the second. I'm saying what Jordan was saying, which is it's the second option. Something's happening. There's a new technology. There's a thing just now.
Speaker A:No, but what about, okay, what about those horror films about like ants? Or vampires. Ants are more like zombies, though.
Speaker B: It's them. And it's from the: Speaker A:I guess you're going to tell me that Godzilla isn't a low-level threat. He's a giant lizard.
Speaker B:No, he's the dragon. Like we've had dragon stories forever. Is a werewolf a low-level threat?
Speaker A:Well, look, let's try on. Yeah, werewolves. No, look, but let's assume for a moment that it is two for sure. It's 0.2, not 0.1. Let's just assume that for a minute. And therefore, let's run with that. If so, why? Why now? What is it about zombies and now? I want to do the boring question first and then move on. Well, of course you do.
Speaker B:Mikey was going to say something. No, I was going to say something about the interesting question.
Speaker A:All I want to do, all I want to do is get over the fact. Well, say you're boring a bit and then let's go to Mikey. If I wanted to make an argument that zombies represent a sort of universal, you know, fear. By the way, can't it be 0.3? Like it's a bit of both, but maybe more 0.2 than 1. Okay, so if you're making the argument that there is a universal fear represented by zombies, it's easy because they're essentially diseased. We've got a very strong, evolved fear of disease. And they totally represent a, you know, a contagious disease that could come and kill you. And I think that's, it's very hard to argue that people weren't scared of that.
Speaker B: that is that what happened in: Speaker A:Well, there was Ebola, there was, you could say HIV.
Speaker B:No, we lived through the Spanish flu and the Justinian plague. There are times when this story would have made sense. It's not now.
Speaker C:What about the economics of it? Like the disease of like GFC, disease of capitalism. I think that's a big one as well.
Speaker B:I mean, that's on my list of possible explanations. Capitalism. And you're probably thinking of, is it Dawn of the Dead with the shopping mall scenes? Yeah. They're zombies and consumers are sort of overtly kind of compared. Right. Okay.
Speaker A:When you're saying that you're making me think, well, what about mobile phones? You know, being people of, you know, the phrase mobile phone zombies, the idea of being kind of consumed by some mindless pursuit, you know, like a zombie just because, you know, technology zombifying people could be something. Techno-zombie, yeah. Hold on.
Speaker B:So another theory that I've found on the internet.
Speaker A:See, we get to the interesting bit and he's still not happy. I've decided that the interesting bit is not the interesting bit actually. I think the boring bit is actually the interesting bit or the real answer. But anyway, Mikey.
Speaker B:Well, so I've harvested a few not my own ideas. One is obviously the disease idea. A friend of mine, Tom, came up with this. Basically, geeks like to feel that they're superior to everyone else. So the idea that zombies are consumers in shopping malls or whatever, consuming away. And then among geeks, they can be like, I'm not one of them. It doesn't really feel...
Speaker A:So hipsterism, the rise of hipsterism and looking down on so-called conformists. Well, potentially. I think that that would make more sense if the great zombie wave had happened in the 50s when there was a big fear of communism. That would make more sense because that's more like, you know, this kind of the infection, the fact you can't tell who's a communist or not. And the fact that what? I think we're all barking up the wrong tree. And actually, of these two questions, even these are not the most interesting ones. Because I do think it actually is. I just think it's the turn of the zombies. I think it's just that. And zombie time. Yeah. And for a while it was Nosferatu and, you know, vampires. And then for a bit it was aliens. And now it's zombies. That's all it is. But why is it zombies? Well, exactly. I think it likes to explain things by creating another question, which then requires an answer using the same framework we were using earlier. Mate, I don't know. I don't even go to that level, you know. But I'm sure you're right. Which is, I just think it was the turn of the zombies. And, you know, why was it western films, but now it's all superheroes. And you kind of look at what's happening
Speaker B:socially and culturally or whatever. I've got a possible answer to both of those questions. It's superheroes and zombies are both kind of had a bit of a rise recently. And another theory of another Tom who I asked was that there was there's some there's old fashioned films like Zulu where you get your heroes band of guys who club together and they've got a massive onslaught of these terrible looking but fairly low level enemies who keep coming and they just shoot them up, have a sort of ethical problematic vibe these days. Whereas zombies, no one's going to cry too many tears about a zombie being shot in the head. And same with the superhero, make it a blatantly fictional fun universe. Then you can have your shoot ups, possibly.
Speaker C:I think violence is a big part of it, actually. I think like the fact that killing zombies is seen as perfectly legitimate in a way that killing other things in reality is not is a big part of the appeal of zombies. Like people can kind of live out their violent fantasies. And it is yeah, it is quite striking that like the the laws of morality don't seem to apply to zombies. Like if you if you kill 100 zombies, that's fine. It's not seen as
Speaker A: ight? Slash films. Yeah. Now,: Speaker B:No, that was a deep seated anxiety. He ticks all his boxes. Islamists are a low level threat. Is it low level? Is it a terrorist? I think terrorists as well. It's high impact, low frequency. A terrorist is no more scary than a zombie. But when you see a terrorist, they're not a threat at all. It's when they're doing something like flying a plane into something. Yeah, most of the time they're fine. Yeah, but a zombie could do that.
Speaker A:Listen, I think we've thrown out, without any ability really to decide which of these are more or less true, a bunch of reasons why we might be seeing zombies being popular. No, please, Fraser, listen, because we want to go on, I think, to now talk about how they work. Yes, exactly. Look, two things. We've got Mikey, okay? Yeah, he's about to tell us his theory. Yeah, and I know he's not our special guest. He's a teacher, so he knows all about how zombies work. Mikey, please, help us out.
Speaker B:I don't have any idea. I mean, I basically, as I said, I came in with a question. My plan was not to let you leave the room until you'd analysis and decision made your way out of it, and you've done it. It's terrorist. Well, no, we've...
Speaker A:But was your main thing the why now?
Speaker B:Well, yeah, exactly. Why is the story suddenly taking a grip on our... I think there's so many more interesting questions than that. No, fine, you're bored of the question and we've done it, so let's move on. Yeah, how do zombies work? Good question.
Speaker A:Fraser's really unsatisfied. He's just insatiable. You answer one question, he declares it boring and wants to move on to a different one, and then he declares that one boring too.
Speaker B:Can you have a zombie dog?
Speaker A:You'd like that question, wouldn't you? You definitely can. But no, actually, seriously, do we want to go down that avenue? Because I don't want to drag you here, Mikey. We want to go down the avenue of talking about how zombies work, and I will tell you now that Jordan and me are no more or less expert on this than Mikey. So he's got as much view as I have. I mean, the evidence suggests that you can have a zombie dog, right? Because I've seen a zombie dragon on TV, okay? That's true. Yeah, in Game of Thrones. Spoiler alert. Yeah, and I'm sure I've seen... I've seen zombie dogs. Yeah, and I think I've seen zombie dogs in films. So you can definitely have them. So the answer is yes, you can.
Speaker B:Well, that was satisfying.
Speaker A:Two. Two for two. Let's go. So how might they work, though, like scientifically? I think you can't... Obviously, for a zombie to work, it has to have some kind of muscles. Yes. So the really rotten zombies that are just bones, no, not having that. That can only work with supernatural stuff. But let's say that someone dies and their muscles are still in good enough nick. I think what you need there is some kind of parasite or, you know, some kind of virus or bacteria or some other thing which can inhabit the zombie's muscles and is somehow able to also, you know, it's got the nervous system has to be sufficiently intact to be able to do things like see and coordinate movement. But as you have seen from the films, they're not that good at it, right? But they can do it for a long time anyway. Well, right. But they may be based on a different kind of metabolism. And in fact, whatever it is that's doing it, like in The Last of Us, it's actually a fungus, for example, it's a cordyceps fungus. So a cordyceps fungus do that in real life. They use, they basically grow inside the inside the skeleton of the insect that they're infecting. And they use its body to do stuff and they grow inside its brain and use its brain to do stuff. So there's a precedent for that, right? We can imagine the thing that makes use of what's left of the human after it's died. So it kills its host and then uses the body to do stuff. And the fact that the host has died and presumably has rotten a bit because that's what people do when they die explains why they're not very good at stuff. But anyway, I suppose all I'm saying is that it's not, it is actually possible to imagine a way that zombies could work physically. OK. But then that raises the other question of what's it like to be a zombie? I think that's where you were. Mikey, what's it like to be a zombie?
Speaker B:Oh, well, I've always thought, I've always thought, there's a good argument to be made for just changing sides, isn't it? Once you're bitten, it all seems like it's fine, doesn't it? Yeah, right. I've never really, and I just, yeah, the film I watched the other, last night, they, the two main characters were like, let's kill each other because the zombies are going to get us. And I thought, come on, it's not that bad. Just wander around, sort of, you know, eating, get zombied up.
Speaker A:Oh, what, they want to kill themselves to prevent themselves from becoming zombies?
Speaker B:Yeah, they were like, at least we won't be one of them.
Speaker A:Yeah, but I think, yeah, but now you're in a way like saying it's the fear of the zombie ideology, that people don't want to, that's why people were afraid of, you know, becoming, of being brainwashed into communism. It's like, basically, you get persuaded to become a zombie. That's what people are scared of. They're scared of you deciding that you want to be a zombie. Jordan, did you look, I saw you, you were looking at philosophical zombies.
Speaker C:I was looking at philosophical zombies. But it's sort of, I mean, the simplest version of the argument, I think, which is where you sort of led us to, Nick, was zombies are conceivable. And whatever is conceivable is possible. Therefore, zombies are possible.
Speaker A:That was the ontological argument. So, a philosophical zombie is more of a thought experiment, really. But it says, basically, it's someone who's exactly like someone you know, but they're not conscious, right? So, p-zombies. We call them p-zombies because the actual philosophy literature calls them p-zombies. So, the question is, could such a thing exist? Could you have a person behaving exactly like a person but not have any conscious experience? But this feels a lot like Turing thing, right? It feels like that, no? Right. I've got a thing written down here. Our artificial intelligence is zombies.
Speaker B:Are you trying to say it's very difficult for us to persuade each other that we're not just a brain and a vat? Is it one of those kinds of things? Yeah.
Speaker A:But it's more like, okay, how do you know I'm conscious? Exactly. Are you conscious?
Speaker B:I'd know how to do it if I was in The Traitors. It'd be like this. Are you conscious? Oh, he's faltered.
Speaker A:He didn't say 100%. P-zombies famously can't lie. But the point is, I think there's, okay, on one hand, you can say, yeah, actually, there is no way of knowing. And yes, philosophical zombies could exist. But I think more interestingly is the idea that there is a certain level of functioning, which implies a kind of information processing capability that may not be possible without also giving you consciousness at the same time. So that's the idea that consciousness is a side effect of certain kinds of information processing, which means that you can't have a philosophical zombie. And in fact, as an actual horror film zombie, H-zombies, they might be partially conscious, but perhaps as conscious as an animal or something like a dog. And a zombie dog is only as conscious as a zombie mouse. No, as a real mouse. And a zombie mouse is as conscious as an actual ant. So that's how it works. There's the maths.
Speaker B:And zombie ants really exist, right? Yeah, and zombie ants are real.
Speaker A:So we can just go and interview them and find out what they're thinking. But also, if you're a human, is a zombie ant any scarier than an actual ant? But also, if you're an ant, a zombie ant probably is scary. Anyway, look. No, actually, because that's a good point, because the zombie ants have evolved to get rid of zombie ants as fast as they possibly can. So the fungus that infects ants and other animals makes the ants basically try to go to places where they'll infect other ants. So it makes them kind of go high up so that their spores will scatter over an area, but specifically over an area where ants are. So some of them, for example, go and hang underneath a leaf and then just sit there and die. And the fungus then spreads out in places where the ants are. And so the ants, I think, have also evolved to get rid of infected ants. So if they see an ant who's behaving a bit weirdly, then they like move the ant miles away as soon as they can. Hold on. So is our fear of zombies and our desire to get away from them actually an evolutionary holdover from when we were ants? Right, look, I feel... Are you turning into a zombie? Possibly. I mean, I'm exhausted and I feel lost. And I feel... Also, I feel I've made a mess. This feels so much messier than I expected. Yeah, well, I mean, there's a lot of questions to ask. I think this is going to be one of those ones where we do a little bit of lots of questions. And... Is it, Mike? You got anything else?
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I completely disagree. I think you've done an excellent job, Fraser. You've led us down a clear and direct path. We've covered, we've covered the old, what's it called? The P-zombies. Oh, the terrorists. Yeah, the terrorists. And then we've established what it's like to be a zombie quickly at the end. And we've talked about ants. And mechanisms. We've covered a lot. It feels like a very complete, bring it home with a good question.
Speaker A:I sometimes feel at the end of these podcasts that, you know, that we've answered something, you know? And whilst it's true that ones where I feel that we haven't answered anything, we've still got something out of it. I just feel totally lost. Oh, no, I think we've, I think we've covered a lot here. I think it's been fun. But has anyone else got anything else?
Speaker B:That's the exact opposite of, well, I think that was a really good one, which is the pinnacle, the pinnacle Fraser comment you get at the end is, you know, you've really done well. We need to somehow wrap this up.
Speaker A:We somehow need to wrap this up. One of you save me. Jordan, Mikey or Nick won't be able to.
Speaker C:I've got a zombie survival plan. Yeah, we haven't talked about survival plans at all. Go on, Jordan. So the survival plan goes something like this. So the first thing you need to do is leave the city. Yes. You've got to go somewhere where there's less people because less people equals less zombies. Next problem, though, is... Not to a graveyard, though. Don't go to a graveyard, obviously. Next problem, supplies and weapons. You need both to stay alive for protection and for sustenance. Did you get this from watching Black Summer? But anyway, keep going. Just thinking about zombies. OK. So I think it would be, it's wise if you're in like a rural place, make friends with some like nice country people. But not zombies. Make sure they're not zombies. But yeah, you need somewhere to stay that's protected but has supplies and has access to weapons because you might come across zombies. Right, so we've got to build a palisade or something. Something like that. Now, this is where it goes into two directions. I think you can either, you need to go somewhere cold, possibly, because the cold temperatures will freeze the zombies, potentially. That's true. Slow them down so they won't be as effective. It's a medical fact, actually, yeah. It's preposterous. The other, the other.
Speaker A:No, no, no. Let him keep going. No, no, no. Just let him keep going. Under any hypothesis about how zombies work, Jordan's right. Thank you. Cold weather will slow them down. It will slow them down. And eventually freeze them. Yeah, fine. Keep going.
Speaker C:Or the other alternative I was thinking of is you can find, you can either steal or persuade someone to lend you their boat, and you can sail or motor to an island somewhere.
Speaker A:Yeah, but Jordan, we don't know if zombies have an aerobic metabolism, so it's possible that they can walk underwater until they get you. That's true. Let him keep going. Let him keep going. Or is that it? That's it. That's it. Okay, all right.
Speaker C:But then you can come back and salvage civilization. That is the end. So, like, you basically waited out and then you returned to, yeah.
Speaker A:You could become king of the new civilization. It sounds like an awesome plan. You haven't got to wait that long. I don't think there's any serious hypothesis about how zombies work. That means you need to be there for months. I mean, they will have rotted away soon. There's only a certain amount of time. Do they, though?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think they do. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, it's just because, like. Also, the high levels, the survival guide for the whole of society is the military holds up for a bit and eventually rescues the survivors. So any individual's plan is wait until you get rescued by big, muscly guys.
Speaker A:I don't trust them. And I think their overconfidence will be their undoing because what will happen is one zombie will get inside the base and they won't have planned for that. And the military will become zombies. And then you've got zombies in tanks. And the only thing worse than a zombie is a zombie in a tank. So I think you've got to look out for yourself. Don't expect the military. The military aren't going to help you. And if you do see tanks coming, it's probably zombies. We need to stop. Okay. Now, so before we do.
Speaker B:Just to quickly summarize Jordan's point. Tool up, then hole up. That's the four word approach for what to do in a zombie. Well said.
Speaker A:What's your favorite scene from a zombie film?
Speaker C:Shaun of the Dead, but can't remember. I don't have a specific scene that I like, but I just like Zomcom. I like the idea of turning zombies on its head to be something comedic and funny.
Speaker A:Yeah. I mean, I'll come back to you. There must be a stop to being scary. Must be a scene, right? Do you want to go next, Nick? Well, I think. Sure. Go on. So, well, there's one scary scene, which I think really works well, which is in World War Z. And I'm not calling it World War Z. World War Z, where the zombies attack Jerusalem, I think. And they sort of pile themselves up against the walls and get in that way. It's really effective. It's very well done. But the scene I probably would go for is in Peter Jackson's one of his early films, Brain Dead, which is about a sort of zombie. It's a virus that causes people to become zombies. And it's one of the goriest films I've ever seen. And there's a scene where the hero is defending himself against a horde of zombies with a rotary lawnmower. And he's just ploughing through them. And they're all exploding as he does so. And it ends up just him in the middle of the room with this lawnmower absolutely covered in blood and limbs. It's great. Comedy gold. I'm having trouble here. But I mean, it's not really. But one thing I can think of, and I think it is in Walking Dead, there's a bit where this guy is being a little bit quiet. And he's escaped the zombies. But the other guy didn't make it. And then you see what happened. And it's that they were both running away. They both managed to get away. But then the zombies were getting closer. And so what does he do? He shoots his mate in the leg. And off he goes. For some reason, that sticks in my mind. Mikey.
Speaker B:So I've got two in contention. One's clearly better, but I can't remember it so well. The first one's from, is it Dawn of the Dead? The second Romero film. The classic supermarket scene. And I mean, it's great, but it's particularly great because I think there's either a supermarket Santa zombie or a clown zombie or maybe both.
Speaker A:But they're actually in the supermarket. Like one of them's pushing a shopping trolley and stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's just it's taken the idea that these were real people doing sometimes preposterous things. And they've become zombies nonetheless, even though they were doing something silly and done it very well. And then the other one is, I can't remember which film it's in or exactly what happens, but a shark fights a zombie. And you get to find out what happens when a shark fights a zombie. And the answers will surprise you. We'll put a link to that in the podcast show notes.
Speaker A:OK, we'll stop there. Yeah, I did enjoy that. I think that was a good one. We did it, boys. All right. So thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Jordan Fermanis and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and friend of the podcast, Mikey Lear. Thank you, as always. Until next time. Goodbye.
