little or no higher functioning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer
This is a cannibal with higher functioning. This is not a zombie because he had this higher functioning.
“Sick person” doesn’t remove a label given to someone based on disease/infection. For instance, someone who has leprosy is called a Leper. A leper doesn’t have to be someone affected with leprosy, as it can also be used in a social context. Likewise, a zombie does not have to be someone who is undead and eats flesh, the term is just used to describe something that seems like this.
Have you never heard the phrases “you look like a zombie” “I feel zombified”? Those are used in context for a lack of higher functioning and looking like shit.
So you want to intentionally ignore the meaning of zombie and replace it with your own. We’re talking about zombies here, not wannabe facsimilies and nicknames based on association with zombies.
Everything you listed is derivative of the core concept of zombie but you want to act like they stand on their own merit.
You yourself do not even know what it means, since you believe that a human being that eats human flesh with no higher brain function is just a normal old cannibal.
The modern concept of zombie is not the core concept, the Haitian folklore is. Concepts change over time, the concept of a zombie is no longer necessarily undead in today’s fairytales. If you can’t somehow wrap that around your head, then you are wasting both of our time and I don’t see a reason to continue this conversation any further.
Perhaps you yourself are lacking higher brain functioning? Sounds like I’m talking to a zombie in denial.
