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Science Fiction

Body Snatchers!: The Invasion of Philosophy

David Suits on the philosophical lessons of a cult classic.

The dark events of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers take place in the small town of Santa Mira, where Wilma Lenz is one of the first persons to notice that something strange is going on. Her uncle, Ira, seems to have changed, and now something about him is not right; he is both Uncle Ira and he is not. Wilma talks to Dr Miles Bennell about what she feels:

With this – this Uncle Ira, or whoever or whatever he is, I have that feeling, the absolutely certain knowledge, Miles, that he’s talking by rote. That the facts of Uncle Ira’s memories are all in his mind in every last detail, ready to recall. But the emotions are not.

…