"
Zimboe" is a term coined by the
philosopher Daniel Dennett, in explaining why the
philosophical concept of a
zombie is incoherent. Philosophers call a "zombie" any hypothetical being that looks and acts exactly like a regular person, but is not actually conscious or self-aware. A zombie would be an automaton so perfect that no one could tell by examining it whether or not it was a real person. A zimboe is a zombie that has apparent "second-order" states--that is, beliefs about the physiological, just-like-human states that it is in.
Arguably, being a zimboe is sufficient for being a ("real") person; and, arguably, all zombies must, by hypothesis, also be zimboes; in which case one cannot make sense of zombies as distinct from persons.
See also: