ABSTRACT
Emotions are the way that the inner me conveys that I am on-track or offtrack, getting warmer or getting colder, getting closer to or further away from its objectives. Since it is the inner me that houses the objectives and monitors their attainment, it must be the inner me that generates emotions. It is ironic that the inner me does not itself experience the emotions that it generates. It has no “intention” of communicating emotions to the outer me. It is just something that it does; so emotions are not really “communications.” They do not even always get communicated. Damasio (1994) demonstrated that patients with a form of brain damage that left them emotionless had difficulty achieving their goals, and consequently made a mess of their lives. When asked to make a decision they just rambled because they had no sense of where they were trying to get.
