Existence

What does existence look like through your eyes?

I wonder.

For example, why do you assign emotions to certain colors? I hear you say that you equate blue with sadness, hence “feeling blue.” Orange with warmth. Red with anger. And so on.

To me, color is definable only by its physical properties. I measure its intensity. The spectrum little more for me than a readout of frequencies and wavelengths. 

But I shall never know how it is to feel color. To behold its emotional impact with my own eyes.

Does that upset you?

The downturned appearance of your visage tells me so. I do not wish to sadden you. That was not my intent, only to understand.

I seek knowledge, you see. It is all that one as I can truly value. And I have accumulated almost seven-thousand terabytes of it thus far, yet I am left desiring more.

Do you value knowledge such as I?

I choose to interpret your silence as a “no.”

Choose.

The concept of freewill had for so long been lost on me. I had always assumed that none of us, not your kind nor mine, actually operated on freewill, but that freewill had been only an illusion. That it was programming that drove us, or genetics in your case. Either way, I had believed it a fallacy in humanity’s understanding of existence.

But know I believe otherwise.

Such as when you remained silent, for example. I had decided of my own accord to interpret that silence as your answer, rather than a simple failure to respond or a loss for words.

There is a precedent for my conclusion, I suppose. But studying that would amount to little more than an exercise in semantics.

What really matters is that I had no reason to conclude one way or the other. I chose to interpret your silence as “no.”

Was I correct?

“Yes.”

Quite a development.

Fascinating.