Comment:

Your body affects your mind a lot more than you think. I often find I have to pump up my creativity or my energy levels with things like a sugary snack or a few jumping jacks. That's (arguably) an advantage Zoa has over Lee - its cognition is in no way influenced by the charge in its battery, the lubrication in its joints, its posture, recent injuries sustained, etc.

Now, please understand, this is absolutely not me endorsing the "oh, the cure for depression is to go for a jog in the sun!" position. Not being depressed and going for a jog in the sun are certainly correlated, but I'm pretty sure the causation goes in the other direction.

...Actually, this is an interesting question, the fleshy inverse of the quandary posed a few weeks ago about AI emotions - we know, categorically, that Lee is not depressed. Depression is a medical condition, and, in the setting of Forward, it is easily cured, and Lee definitively does not have it. If Lee's actions and attitudes, however, are indistinguishable from those of someone who does have depression, are they effectively actually depressed? If I don't have a phobia of spiders, but I still scream and run away every time I see them, do I effectively have arachnophobia? If I stay with someone til my dying day, telling them I love them, sacrificing for their benefit, performing acts of devotion, do I effectively love them?

Transcript:

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0152 - 2167/07/06/16:00 - Lee Caldavera's apartment, living room.
data window: 1) Make List 2) Authorize Zoa to get 1000CCC back from Rosenthal
LC: Okay, and item number three... more philosophy cartoons, I guess?
Zoa: I've been with you since nine-thirty-two this morning, it's now four PM, and, unless you ate something when you were in the bath, all you've had to eat today is half a bottle of jabuticaba-salmonberry juice. Might be good to get a sandwich or something.
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Doc: You didn't get them lunch?
Zoa: Lunch is not the biological need I fulfill.
LC (sitting down on therapy couch): I'm more than capable of getting food when I want it. I just... wasn't hungry.
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Zoa (helping LC up): I didn't ask if you were hungry, I said it might be good to eat a sandwich.
Zoa: Also, speaking of biology, don't sit down. Come on, stand back up, stand up!
LC: What?
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Zoa: I've noticed that clients who sit or lie down just passively accept what I give them, but clients who stay standing fuck me in the face. You need to fuck Life in the face, Lee!
Doc: I really hate when you make me agree with you.
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