Comment by n4r9

Yes, I'd agree with that. The way I think of it is that emotions are somewhat "mechanistic". I don't directly control them, but they follow certain principles. For example, fear often arises in response to a perceived threat (physical or otherwise). My boss calling me to an unexpected meeting might make me panic. And even once the peak of the fear subsides, I am more vulnerable to experiencing it again for some time. E.g. I get home and my wife's car is gone, then suddenly I'm scared that she's been in an accident or something. None of this is a rational response. There are some hand-wavey evolutionary-psychology arguments for why they operate that way. But the main thing is that there are principles that make sense out of it, and those principles are (perhaps) surprisingly consistent across humans.