User blog comment:Killbethy/Is Ichigo more than human? Defining Species./@comment-44061-20101209054606/@comment-3242743-20101214081940

You are kind of saying the same thing as me in a way in this quote: "The powers and job define a Shinigami. Nothing more than a soul with supernatural powers.

I just think that as long as Shinigami is considered a "species," something biological in nature, that Ichigo will always partially belong in that category. On the other hand, if instead the Shinigami characters had their species listed as something like "spiritual being," I would say that, yes, he is human now. In a way, Ichigo was both dead and alive while he was a Substitute Shinigami because he could exist on both the world of the living and as a NORMAL human (not a being in a gigai... if that were the case, he would not have needed Kon to animate his human body while he was spiritually seperated from it) AND as a disembodied soul or spirit while doing the job of a Shinigami. If you remember, before Kon animated Ichigo, his human body would basically just collapse almost into a lifeless state. This is ENTIRELY different from a gigai, which is an object that is created/made/manufactured to contain a soul which otherwise does not have a body (specifically by Urahara). Rukia needed a gigai to interract with humans because she only exists as a spiritual being and does not have a physical human body of her own. Ichigo is unique in that he can exist entirely in both forms, completely human (yes, with higher spiritual powers in the beginning, but still entirely human) and as completely spiritual and invisible to ordinary humans without heightened spiritual powers... (but hey, maybe they shoved Ichigo's fetus into an aging, expandable gigai lol).

As far as saying that "one cannot be both alive and dead and the same time," philosophically, that is incorect. You should be familiar with the Shrodinger's Cat thought experiment. If someone is shown a box that contains a cat that is either alive or dead (with no one knowing the actual state until the box is opened). During that time, the cat is both alive and dead (in the reality outside the box); the probabilities of both answers are exactly the same and neither is correct or incorrect until confirmed. It's not until an the observer opens the box that the cat can truly be considered either alive or dead. This isn't saying that something can physically be both alive and dead at the same time; it simply means that it takes the observer's certainty of its state of being before it becomes a universal reality.

How this concerns Ichigo and the rest of the characters in the Bleach universe is that one's state of being is permanent, not transient. Even if a Shinigami were to be placed in a gigai for a long enough period to lose all of their spiritual powers, they would never truly BE a human being. Having the abilities (or lack of abilities) and appearance of a human doesn't transform a Shinigami and put them into the ranks of humanity, it's just a facade, albeit a permanent one. The gigai will always be a gigai, a container, and the Shinigami always a spiritual being inhabiting it. Even after the Shinigami's spiritual powers all disappear, their origin remains the same (a spiritual being) and the qualifications for being human (actually being born into the world of living, possessing a physical human body from birth, not a man-made " soul container" like a gigai, only living the span of a normal human life, dying once) remain fundamentally different. In Ichigo's case, since he is the product of a union between a human and a Shinigami, his situation is a lot like the Shrodinger's Cat thought experiment. He has existed as both entirely human and entirely spiritual, he exhibits the same type of paradox as the both alive and dead cat. From witnessing Ichigo in both physical and spiritual forms so far, the capacity to exist in each of those states of being exist simultaneously (like the cat). We are the observers and the hypothetical "box" can't be opened until the story is finished, and the state of being is only transient in the case of existence or non-existence (or alive or dead, as you said) and permanent in all others, Ichigo remains both. There is the argument philosophically and logically. The argument for species biologically remains the same: Ichigo was born half-Shinigami (if Shinigami is defined as a species) and was this way from birth and will remain that way until death.

As for his sisters, unless they are adopted, biologically they are the same as Ichigo. Whether or not they ever take on the role of a Shinigami is irrelevant when dealing with the classification of Shinigami as "species" instead of "job."

Your response is EXACTLY why I titled this blog "Defining Species." I agree with you that Shinigami is the classification of a job, not a species. In my opinion, the classifications for characters should be a little re-vamped so that jobs and species aren't confused. Instead of just Shinigami, Visored, or human, etc. listed solely as "species," it would be better defined to list "species" (examples: human, spiritual being, etc.) and then "current classification" (examples: current (or former) Shinigami, Visored, Quincy (for human), etc.)

Examples: Species: Spiritual Being; Classification: Visored or Species: Spiritual Being, Classification: current (or former) Shinigami or Species: Human; Classification: heightened spiritual abilities (or none/no spiritual abilities, Quincy, etc.) for Ichigo... Species: Shinigami-Human hybrid; Current Classification: former Shinigami and/or no spiritual abilities

Time to step off the soap box. :)