Zombie Phrase: Do you suppose blind people eat more sausage?
Duhhpzzbuhhndpuhhblll eeell zzahzzjjiha?
NOTE: The significance of this phrase, if translated correctly by the researcher who was tracking this seemingly ordinary conversation, is immense.
If translated correctly, this tells us that zombies are capable of abstract thought. The idea that a zombie is a mindless eating machine is destroyed by this one phrase. What went through this zombie’s head? Was he disgusted by some of the body parts he was eating? Did he then make that link to the idea of sausage, another food source filled with dubious body parts? Did he make a further intuitive leap that visual input was part of his disgust? (If he could not see the nicotine stains, would the lungs be tastier?)
The final sobering consideration: This phrase suggests that zombies are capable both of some version of quantification and of understanding the idea of time. “Less” and “more” are complex ideas requiring a frame of reference. More sausage than what? More sausage than other people? More sausage than the amount of sausage they consumed before they lost their eyesight? More sausage than human victims? (Maybe the blind zombie just hunkers down in any meat section he can find.)
The very idea that zombies can recognize the concept “sausage” ought to give us pause. What is sausage? How do we recognize sausage? This feat is also not so simple as might be first assumed. A vegetarian Morningstar Breakfast link is not sausage. We know this. A hot dog is more debatable and I’d lean to the sausage side on this one. Can turkeys really be made into sausage? Where do we draw the line?
Implied in the above is that at least one zombie was fully prepared to draw that line. Unless he learned about sausage after reanimation — extremely unlikely — the fact that he recollected the nature of sausage is an inescapable conclusion. So much is implied in the above sentence.
Research is needed — and not research into the sausage preferences of blind people. (Although if someone is really, really stuck for a topic for their doctoral research, I suspect the sausage- consumption-of-blind-people topic remains available.)
