JB, After thinking longer about your post . . . a couple of additional thoughts came to mind.

First you say that my idea is not original . . . even though I've never claimed it was. You say that Master Pinker himself was the originator of this concept. When I ask for a cite you give no response.

Then you say that the limbic system is not the elevator's ground floor. For someone so free with the metaphors you seem curiously unwilling to flesh out their meaning and eliminate the ambiguity they bring to the discussion.

Are you saying that emotions are not the data type that the limbic system was designed by evolution to process? Are you implying that cognition or something else is on the elevator's ground floor?

In the other thread Carey accused me of offering a throw-away comment about my cat. Within an hour of reading that I backed it up with an explanation that could be challenged and a link to further data.

Simply saying that I am wrong, even though Pinker seems to have had a similar idea about this, with no explanation as to why I am wrong - is the ultimate throw away comment. Was Pinker wrong too?

Margaret