In my philosophy class, we've been spending a lot of time talking about substace; specifically, Aristotle's conception of substance versus Hume's Bundle Theory. This came to my mind in today's lecture while Professor Doane talked about the semic code. She said that the semic code involves characterization: attaching attributes and qualities to characters, places, objects, etc. But the implication here is that a character in a text is not a person, it's simply a proper name with associated qualities and properties. This represents the crux of the debate over the existence of substance. For Hume, every person, every object, every being is basically just a character when considered through the semic code. His Bundle Theory states that substance does not exist; that everything is an amalgamation of individual properties, which do not inhere in anything at all. However, Aristotle's opinion opposes Hume's: he believes that there is in fact something for each individual property to inhere in, and that beings and objects are more than just the sum of their parts; they have an intangible nature, or, substance. This leads me to realize that real people, physical objects, and living beings are all substantial, or representative of Aristotle's views, while characters represented in a text, or even in film, are all examples of Hume's Bundle Theory.