[anonymous - Callahan's board]

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

This weather is truly dreadful, isn't it? Shall we play a game to pass the time?

Word association. Tell me the first word to come to mind when you hear this:

Class.

Comments

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

It helps people cope. Perhaps with your programs and science you do not feel this need, but humans have an innate need to be bigger than they are - to think they are part of a something great.

Do you find comfort in the idea that you were just an unlucky soul brought here only to die? Or would you like to think there is a reason you are here? That for some reason, a higher authority wished you to be here, to make a difference?

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

I don't need to think some higher authority brought me here to make a difference. What I do with myself and the resources available to me is my decision to make, no one else's. The involvement of a god or other higher force doesn't mean I am automatically doomed to succeed or fail, so I don't see how a belief in that could make any real difference.

I am here, I have certain things I can and cannot do. I don't need anything other than that.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Count yourself lucky that you do not feel the need that plagues others then. The humans I've watched for so long still feel it deeply as it is ingrained in them, I think, from birth.

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's lucky so much as just... different.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Different indeed. Have you never felt the desire for something more?

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

By way of religion? No. That's not what. [pen marks]

It's not what I believe other Coluans are lacking most.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Oh? Then what? If you don't mind me asking.

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

..emotion.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Your people are emotionless?

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

Yes. Normal Coluans reject things like emotion, believing them to be... flawed. That not having them allows for a more pure, logical approach to the universe.

It's one of the reasons I left Colu.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Anything in extremes is deadly, don't you agree?

So you prefer to be more human than your people?

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

Yes, on both counts. I left Colu to try and become more... organic? Human? I wanted to understand what it was like and to feel emotions for myself. That's why I upgraded myself until I looked more humanoid and also build the emotional core into my code.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Built? So you replicated emotional responses? Are you sure you're entirely correct in them all?

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

Yes. I am. I admit, having experienced them more... personally recently, I can think of a few improvements, but nothing is actually incorrect.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

Emotions are to be felt, not improved upon and created. Perhaps you still have much to learn about being human. Perhaps I could teach you, having watched them for so long.

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

That doesn't make any sense. If my species doesn't have emotions, I have to create them in order to feel them. And I have to improve them to make them as close to those experienced by others as possible.

I'd appreciate discussing the matter, but I can't agree with your logic.

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

We can't always agree on everything.

Perhaps we should wait to speak more in person.

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

I suppose...

Yes. I'd like that, especially since as you know there are others who might decide to use this information against me, not to mention the nurses might take issue with the topic of discussion. So talking face-to-face would be preferable. It might also be wise for one of us to remove the latter parts of the conversation?

[deadlyjuliet.livejournal.com]

You shouldn't worry so much about them. They haven't bothered you lately, have they?

But the nurses...yes, they might. I think we can leave it. Unless you are truly worried.

[emotionl4arobot.livejournal.com]

No, that's true. But I doubt they're the type to give up or forget. It's possible I should be more concerned about why they're silent than anything else.

I... I guess it can be left here. I doubt anyone's been reading this much of our conversation, considering the game.