On emotions.

Reply to Posty McPostface Emotions are the instruments on which our lives are played. Without emotions our lives would just be a series of flat synthesized tones. With emotion our lives are an orchestra.

Emotions evolved before intellect in animals. Emotional responses (such as fear) protected animals. When an animal perceived danger, its emotions galvanized action without the necessity of complicated analysis. For instance, the sight of a large bird overhead signals to ground animals instant action. The fear response triggers instant action or maybe no action: a movement freeze can be quite protective.

Memory is closely allied with emotions and sensory input. Remembering danger speeds up the survival reaction even more.

Many animals developed intellect to enhance emotional responses. They got better at detecting small details indicating whether danger was imminent or not. So prey animals (like wildebeests) can tell the difference between a full-belly lion (no danger) and an empty-belly lion (watch out!).

All this developed before photo-primate creatures appeared.

The primate evolutionary line incorporated the beneficial aspects of emotions and over time sharpened up the cognitive function. In primates, as much as other animals, emotions are the primary springboard of behavior, triggering protective behaviors, mating behaviors, bonding behaviors, and so forth.

Humans retain the evolutionary equipment of other primates and the preceding evolutionary inheritance. There are complex linkages between emotion, memory, sensory centers, and the pre-frontal cortex where thinking goes on.

Quoting Bitter Crank

Emotions are the instruments on which our lives are played. Without emotions our lives would just be a series of flat synthesized tones. With emotion our lives are an orchestra.

(Won't be as funny if you don't recognize the man, unfortunately)

Reply to Terrapin Station Who is the man?

Reply to Bitter Crank

Rick Wakeman (primarily of Yes fame)

Reply to Terrapin Station You are absolutely right -- it's not very funny. The band "Yes" is an empty file. My cultural deficiencies strike again.

Emotion is the basis for ethics.

And seals like other mammals are just like us humans.

They perceive their environment, consider it, and react to it.

Their brains have gray matter just like ours do.