Thanks to RebeccaETripp for the inspiration!
A philosophical zombie or p-zombie in the philosophy of mind and perception is a hypothetical being. This being is indistinguishable from a normal human being except in that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.
RebeccaETripp once said in her famous video Final Fantasy The Psychology & Philosophy 2: Layers of Self Projection
Objectively, we can say that two-dimensional creatures can’t feel anything at all because they have no brains. But then, why did so many people cry real tears when Aerith was killed in Final Fantasy VII?
This is because it is 100 percent possible to relate to fictional characters. What’s subjective is how and why we do this.
For example, a philosophical zombie i.e. Aerith could be poked with a sharp object i.e. Sephiroth’s Masamune, and not feel any pain sensation, but yet behave exactly as if it did feel pain (it may say “ouch” and recoil from the stimulus, or say that it is in intense pain). They don’t have real emotions, but react to emotional events as if they do
“What about my pain? My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!”
Many other Final Fantasy characters, from Zack Fair, Squall Leonhart, Yeul and Serah Farron would be philosophical zombies. They can’t feel pain or pleasure.
Can philosophical zombies exist in the real world? We can’t know. “There is nothing it is like to be a zombie”. We can say nothing about philosophical zombies existing in the real world. Philosophical zombies in the real world only seem logically possible because we don’t understand how they can’t be. We can still somehow relate to characters even when they are fictional. Philosophical zombies aren’t falsifiable and have just amount of proof as spirits. But we can somehow identify with the idea of philosophical zombies. Thus, philosophical zombies in a real-life sense fall under the fallacy of ignorance. But in the video game world, however, yes they do exist.
How does this change your opinion about them?