Everybody has a rich inner landscape contoured by emotions; they not only give meaning and color to everyday experience, but emotions commonly influence decision-making. They may be humanity’s earliest guide to how to get basic needs met. Yet science is not quite clear what emotions are. Whether they are inborn, genetically determined reactions, each with its own mechanism; patterns of response to stimuli, each distinctively etched into neural circuitry; or in-the-moment interpretations of ...
