Abstract
Some fundamental aspects of the emotion system and the cognition system are discussed from the perspective of urge theory. Urge theory, developed by the present author, regards the human mind as software that has evolved primarily to survive in the wild environments in which evolution has taken place. As major subsystems of the mind, the emotion system and the cognition system are two separate systems that closely interact in their functions. This paper first presents a general framework of the emotion system, and then outlines some specific operational modes of the cognitive system that are foundational for certain functions of the emotion system. These discussions touch on a number of topics, such as the here-and-now effect, attention traps, cognitive controls of emotion, and dynamic schemas as a tool for thinking, as well as imagination, language. These are all essential concepts for understanding the operation of the mind as the software that drives humans as well as animals.
