‘To lead the people, walk behind them.’ –Lao Tzu
I am fascinated with zombies. Always have been, but even more so since I took an interest in microbiology. The zombie apocalypse is the best known and best chronicled viral infection which hasn’t happened. But it could happen any day. (…)
One problem that has to do with zombification is the loss free will. Do zombies have free will? More to the point, do humans have free will?
In two papers entitled A Wasp Manipulates Neuronal Activity in the Sub-Esophageal Ganglion to Decrease the Drive for Walking in Its Cockroach Prey and On predatory wasps and zombie cockroaches — Investigations of “free will” and spontaneous behavior in insects, Ram Gal and Frederic Libersat from Ben Gurion University explore free will in cockroaches. Do cockroaches have free will, or are they just sophisticated automatons? And where do we draw the line between the two?
Gal and Libersat use the following definition for free will: the expression of patterns of “endogenously-generated spontaneous behavior”. That is, a behavior which has a pattern (i.e. not just random fluctuations) and must come from within (i.e. not entirely in response to external stimuli). They cite studies where such behavior — which they define as a “precursor of free will in insects” — is observed. They then show how this behavior is removed from cockroaches when the roaches are attacked by a wasp. (…)
So how about molecular zombies?
