It’s so funny when Data prefaces saying he doesn’t have emotions (lie) with “I am an android” as if being an android therefore means he doesn’t have emotions when the only other two androids we’ve seen (at least up to season 4 which is how much tng i’ve watched) literally died from emotions (Lal 😔) or….are Lore (Lore).
He says it so matter of factly, too.
I believe it’s because that’s what he was told early on (and keeps getting told throughout his life so it’s reinforced). Other people told him (also very matter of fact) that androids don’t have emotions. People who were supposed to be knowledgeable (like the ones who found him). So he trusted them. And since he doesn’t experience emotions the way humans do, that only served to further reinforce the idea that he must not have any. Whatever sensation he’s dealing with must not be *emotion* because, well, androids don’t have those.
“The Starfleet officers who first activated me on Omicron Theta told me I was an android, nothing more than a sophisticated machine with human form. ”
YESS! All of this is exactly how I see it
(Also: androids literally dying from emotions goes back at least as far as Reyna from TOS’s “Requiem for Methuselah”)