justinday: Tangential zombie thoughts: Why don’t zombies ever try to eat each other’s brains? Surely there’s some undecomposed brain in there. Can zombies starve? What would a simulation looked like if it assumed that zombies had to eat and that they would settle for partially decomposed brain if necessary? If zombies eat each other’s brains, the zombie threat is potentially self-limiting. Yet we know that - in the absence of natural enemies such as chainsaw-wielding humans - the tendency is for the zombie population to increase unchecked (until humanity is extinct, at which point starvation would presumably be a possibility). Therefore, there are two possibilities. One is that zombie brains are not tasty or nutritious, perhaps because they have been altered through infection by whatever biological or supernatural agent creates zombies. The other is that natural selection effects are at work. Zombies do not (as far as we know) breed; new zombies are created by zombies biting non-zombies. We don’t know the nature of the infectious agent involved - virus, bacterium or prion - but let us assume that there are at least two varieties, which we will call A and B. Strain A predisposes zombies to try to bite anything, including other zombies. This will lead to zombies attacking each other which, as already observed, does not increase and may even reduce the total zombie population. Strain A-infected zombies will, in fact, preferentially attack other zombies, because they are slower-moving and thus easier targets than uninfected humans. Strain B, on the other hand, causes zombies only to attack healthy humans. Although there is an increased risk of what, for want of a better word, we will call zombie mortality - due to determined humans armed with chainsaws, shotguns and cricket bats - it is clear that Strain B will cause the zombie population to increase rather than remain static. Moreover, by preventing zombies turning on each other, Strain B will encourage the formation of zombie mobs. Obviously, mob formation increases zombie hunting effectiveness (incidentally, the zombie ‘reproductive’ cycle, with its reliance on large numbers, has some possible parallels to r-selector reproductive strategies), an important consideration for a slow-moving predator (vampire biology, on the other hand, promotes solitary hunting). Simple Darwinian mechanisms will therefore lead to Strain B becoming dominant in the zombie population. The conclusion, therefore, is that zombies attack humans because a strain of the agent that promotes this behavior has a competitive advantage over one that does not. Finally, a word on starvation. The characteristically slow movement of zombies may be an energy conservation strategy. By slowing their metabolism, they make better use of limited energy reserves, a reasonable strategy for an organism that doesn’t know where its next meal is holed up. If this is the case, then it suggests that zombies are subject to the same kind of constraints as other animals and do not derive their energy from, say, a supernatural source. In this case, it would seem reasonable to assume that they can eventually starve, albeit at a slower rate than a living human might.

justinday:

Tangential zombie thoughts: Why don’t zombies ever try to eat each other’s brains? Surely there’s some undecomposed brain in there. Can zombies starve? What would a simulation looked like if it assumed that zombies had to eat and that they would settle for partially decomposed brain if necessary?

If zombies eat each other’s brains, the zombie threat is potentially self-limiting. Yet we know that - in the absence of natural enemies such as chainsaw-wielding humans - the tendency is for the zombie population to increase unchecked (until humanity is extinct, at which point starvation would presumably be a possibility).

Therefore, there are two possibilities. One is that zombie brains are not tasty or nutritious, perhaps because they have been altered through infection by whatever biological or supernatural agent creates zombies. The other is that natural selection effects are at work. Zombies do not (as far as we know) breed; new zombies are created by zombies biting non-zombies. We don’t know the nature of the infectious agent involved - virus, bacterium or prion - but let us assume that there are at least two varieties, which we will call A and B. Strain A predisposes zombies to try to bite anything, including other zombies. This will lead to zombies attacking each other which, as already observed, does not increase and may even reduce the total zombie population. Strain A-infected zombies will, in fact, preferentially attack other zombies, because they are slower-moving and thus easier targets than uninfected humans.

Strain B, on the other hand, causes zombies only to attack healthy humans. Although there is an increased risk of what, for want of a better word, we will call zombie mortality - due to determined humans armed with chainsaws, shotguns and cricket bats - it is clear that Strain B will cause the zombie population to increase rather than remain static. Moreover, by preventing zombies turning on each other, Strain B will encourage the formation of zombie mobs. Obviously, mob formation increases zombie hunting effectiveness (incidentally, the zombie ‘reproductive’ cycle, with its reliance on large numbers, has some possible parallels to r-selector reproductive strategies), an important consideration for a slow-moving predator (vampire biology, on the other hand, promotes solitary hunting).

Simple Darwinian mechanisms will therefore lead to Strain B becoming dominant in the zombie population. The conclusion, therefore, is that zombies attack humans because a strain of the agent that promotes this behavior has a competitive advantage over one that does not.

Finally, a word on starvation. The characteristically slow movement of zombies may be an energy conservation strategy. By slowing their metabolism, they make better use of limited energy reserves, a reasonable strategy for an organism that doesn’t know where its next meal is holed up. If this is the case, then it suggests that zombies are subject to the same kind of constraints as other animals and do not derive their energy from, say, a supernatural source. In this case, it would seem reasonable to assume that they can eventually starve, albeit at a slower rate than a living human might.

Source: justinday