Do vampires have souls? An interesting question.
In the Buffy-verse, they do not have souls. One of the plots hinges on Angel getting his soul back which would bring about the destruction of the world. In the Anita Blake-verse, Anita is not sure (as of book 6) whether vampires have souls. She was originally convinced that they do not.
From a philosophical viewpoint, this causes immense conceptual problems. The vampire is undead. Sometimes it is referred to as the living dead, along with zombies. But how can something be living and dead? The key point being that, from an Aristotelian point of view, only living beings have souls. So if the vampire or zombie is living, it has a soul. If it is dead, it does not.
Does this suggest that vampires are not possible? Not necessarily. It means we need a better understanding of vampires and zombies. We may need a less physical understanding of life. Vampires grow in power, reproduce through blood-sucking, and have a metabolism (they move), and adapt to their environments as much as other life. Zombies are on less firm footing, because they are controlled by other beings -- the animator. Perhaps zombies are on the border with viruses.
If we so no to vampires, what does this mean about immortality for us human beings....
Monday, January 21, 2008
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4 comments:
If we take a lesson from the world of physics, like anti-matter, perhaps we can posit such a thing as an anti-soul for vampires. When anti-matter and matter come together there is a big big release of energy. When a soul and an anti-soul come together, perhaps the consequences would be the end of the world as we know it.
Wow, I like's it. An anti-soul. Now, how would that work...
Perhaps powered by blood and vodka.
A less physical understanding of life might open up possibilities such as robotic computers that can respond to stimulus when prodded.
Dictionary.com gives a definition for alive as "in a state of action, in force or operation, action."
This might suggest that some form of the Internet which adheres to this description might already fall into the classification of being alive.
Metaphysically speaking, however, everything is in action, for to be means to act. In this case, every things would be alive. I had a Whitewolf character who was a mage whose paradigm worked on this theory. But I'm not sure if it helps us make critical distinctions about souls and forms.
An interesting thought, though.
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