On 6/5/06, Jon_Lincicum at stream.com <Jon_Lincicum at stream.com> wrote: > > Well, but what's the difference between "Permanently dead" and > "disembodied soul"? They seem to be two terms for the same state, with one > term (the dead one) focusing on the state of the body, and the other > talking about just the soul. > While I suppose that there may well be some overlap, the difference that I had in mind is that a "permanently dead" soul is unbound from its body, and is also no longer coherent, and thus no longer present in the usual plane of existence. I guess you could say that it is just about to transition to the "waiting" state. A "disembodied" soul, though, while also permanently dead, still maintains sufficient coherence to manifest in the usual plane of existence. Perhaps "ghost" would be a better choice of term. The obvious case here being Franz. Although I wonder if Franz could have been revivified? Perhaps the very fact that he was a ghost in the building - rather than following/attached to his body - implies that he was in fact killed permanently (while the description says his throat was cut, there may have been a follow-up or incidental spinal severing).