We may smile and the dog may wag the tail, but in essence, we have a set program and those programs are similar across individuals in the species.

So, you can define emotions very simply as the process of perceiving what is going on in the organs when you are in the throws of an emotion, and that is achieved by a collection of structures, some of which are in the brain stem, and some of which are in the cerebral cortex, namely the insular cortex, which I like to mention not because I think it's the most important, it's not.

There is no such thing as a disembodied mind. The mind is implanted in the brain, and the brain is implanted in the body.

Rather than being a luxury, emotions are a very intelligent way of driving an organism toward certain outcomes.

You're not the same after, say, an incredible love affair that went very well or a love affair that went bad. Or something that happens to your health, or something that happened to somebody else's health, that is close to you. Or something that happens professionally.

The autobiographical self is built on the basis of past memories and memories of the plans that we have made; it's the lived past and the anticipated future.

The self is a perpetually recreated neurobiological state.