- character and zombie -

A philosophical zombie or p-zombie is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. When a zombie is poked with a sharp object, for example, it does not feel any pain. While it behaves exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch" and recoil from the stimulus, or tell us that it is in intense pain), it does not actually have the experience of pain as a putative "normal" person does.

Idea actualizes questions of mind-body dualism (or monism) and is put forward by David Chalmers. His argument is that it seems very plausible that such a being could exist because all that is needed is that all and only the things that the physical sciences describe about a zombie must be true of it. Since none of the concepts involved in these sciences make reference to consciousness or other mental phenomena, and any physical entity can be by definition described scientifically via physics, the move from conceivability to possibility is not such a large one.


"I had this idea—which was a stupid idea—of doing a remake of a film called I Walked With A Zombie by Jacques Tourneur, I decided to make something around my memory of that film; a film that has zombies, volcanoes, ghosts, crazy women, dogs, various strange nights, a lot of confusion and mystery. You will see that it's not at all like I Walked With A Zombie; it's something else." (Pedro Costa about "Casa de lava")

- zephyrus character and zero -

The word zero comes ultimately from the Arabic ṣifr (صفر) meaning empty or vacant, a literal translation of the Sanskrit śūnya meaning void or empty. Through transliteration this became zephyr or zephyrus in Latin. The word zephyrus already meant "west wind" in Latin; the proper noun Zephyrus was the Roman god of the west wind (after the Greek god Zephyros). With its new use for the concept of zero, zephyr came to mean a light breeze—"an almost nothing." 

As the decimal zero and its new mathematics spread through a Europe that was still in the Middle Ages, words derived from sifr and zephyrus came to refer to calculation, as well as to privileged knowledge and secret codes. According to Ifrah, "in thirteenth-century Paris, a 'worthless fellow' was called a... cifre en algorisme, i.e., an 'arithmetical nothing.'" The Arabic root gave rise to the modern French chiffre, which means digit, figure, or number; chiffrer, to calculate or compute; and chiffré, encrypted; as well as to the English word cipher. Today, the word in Arabic is still sifr, and cognates of sifr are common throughout the languages of Europe. A few additional examples follow.

* French: zéro, zero

* Catalan; xifra, digit, figure, cypher; zero, zero; xifrar, to encode, to number

* German: Ziffer, digit, figure, numeral, cypher

* Italian: cifra, digit, numeral, cypher; zero, zero

* Russian: tzifra, digit, numeral; shifr cypher, code

* Polish: cyfra, digit; szyfrować, to encrypt; zero, zero

* Portuguese: zero, zero; dígito, digit; número, number; algarismo, figure, numeral

* Spanish: cifra, figure, numeral, cypher, code; cero, zero

* Swedish: siffra, numeral, sum, digit; chiffer, cypher

* Dutch: cijfer, digit

In ancient India, the Indian scholar Pingala (circa 5th-3rd century BC), used binary numbers 0 and 1 in his binary system, to represent short and long syllables (the latter equal in length to two short syllables), which makes it similar to Morse code. 

botticelli: primavera (chloris and zephyrus)

- presence and absence of a character (odysseus) -

French word "personne" mean at the same time presence and absence. 

Going back to Homer Odyssey (Greek: Ὀδύσσεια), there is a passage when Polyphemus asks for Odysseus' name, promising him a guest-gift if he answers. Odysseus tells him "οὔτις," (a short form of his actual name also translatable as "nobody"). Being drunk, Polyphemus thinks of it as a real name and says that he will eat "nobody" last and that this shall be his guest-gift—a vicious insult both to the tradition of hospitality and to Odysseus. With that, Polyphemus crashes to the floor and passes out. Odysseus, with the help of his men, lifts the flaming stake, charges forward and drives it into Polyphemus' eye, blinding him. Polyphemus yells for help from his fellow cyclopes that "nobody" has hurt him. The other cyclopes think Polyphemus is making a fool out of them or that it must be a matter with the gods, and they grumble and go away.

- persona and character in bergman film -

"Then I felt that every inflection of my voice, every word in my mouth, was a lie, a play whose sole purpose was to cover emptiness and boredom. There was only one way I could avoid a state of despair and a breakdown. To be silent. And to reach behind the silence for clarity or at least try to collect the resources that might still be available to me.'" (from Bergman script)

Drama of an actor who decides to stop acting and find his/her real personality is nothing else but pure horror of self...

- character and persona -

Persona is an Italian word that derives from the Latin for a kind of mask made to resonate with the voice of the actor (per sonare meaning "to sound through"). The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek "πρόσωπον". Its meaning in the latter Roman period changed to indicate a "character" of a theatrical performance.

However, there is difference between character, personality and behavior.

1. Behavior is the external appearance without being confirmed or supported by the mind and feelings. 

2. Character is what is supported by the mind and feelings. It is a behavior which is endorsed and directed by the mind. 

3. Personality is on its own. It is self-directed.

Since character is something that is built over time and subjected to changes, unlike personality, which always stays the same, term character is more useful in film theory, being a time based art. Every character must develop or change throughout film, with no exceptions.