This is really interesting but goes completely counter to how I understand emotions. I see emotions as often being driven by very high level but subconscious co

This is really interesting but goes completely counter to how I understand emotions. I see emotions as often being driven by very high level but subconscious cognition. It's like an abstraction that regulates your attitude towards a situation. In order to do that regulation it has to make an assessment at a fairly high level of sophistication. It has to integrate information quickly. I think this is an extension of the way the brain works in general. It's just the most visceral example of the phenomenon of subconscious cognition.