The Autobiographical Self Is Built On The

Some Of Us, For Better Or Worse, Develop Very Stable, Consistent, And Largely Predictable Machineries Of Self. But In Others, The Self Machinery Is More Flexible And More Open To Unexpected Turns.

There Are Things In Our Lives That Take Up An Enormous Importance And That Become Very Dominant Effects In Our Biography. And That Comes Out Of A Variety Of Reasons, But Fundamentally Comes Out Of How That Particular Experience Connects With Your Effective Systems Of Response.

Leaving Out Appraisal Also Would Render The Biological Description Of The Phenomena Of Emotion Vulnerable To The Caricature That Emotions Without An Appraisal Phase Are Meaningless Events. It Would Be More Difficult To See How Beautiful And Amazingly Intelligent Emotions Can Be, And How Powerfully They Can Solve Problems For Us.

A Conscious Mind Is A Mind With A Self In It.

Imagine, For Example, Birds. When They Look Out At The World, They Have A Sense That They Are Alive. If They Are In Pain, They Can Do Something About It. If They Have Hunger Or Thirst, They Can Satisfy That. It's This Basic Feeling That There Is Life Ticking Away Inside Of You.