demands an equal and opposite emotional reaction. This is Newton’s First
Law of Emotion.
Newton’s First Law is constantly dictating the flow of our lives because it
is the algorithm by which our Feeling Brain interprets the world.^7 If a movie
causes more pain than it relieves, you become bored, or perhaps even angry.
(Maybe you even attempt to equalize by demanding your money back.) If
your mother forgets your birthday, maybe you equalize by ignoring her for the
next six months. Or, if you’re more mature, you communicate your
disappointment to her.^8 If your favorite sports team loses in a horrible way,
you will feel compelled to attend fewer games, or to cheer for them less. If
you discover you have a talent for drawing, the admiration and satisfaction
you derive from your competence will inspire you to invest time, energy,
emotion, and money into the craft.^9 If your country elects a bozo whom you
can’t stand, you will feel a disconnect with your nation and government and
even other citizens. You will also feel as though you are owed something in
return for putting up with terrible policies.
Equalization is present in every experience because the drive to equalize
is emotion itself. Sadness is a feeling of powerlessness to make up for a
perceived loss. Anger is the desire to equalize through force and aggression.
Happiness is feeling liberated from pain, while guilt is the feeling that you
deserve some pain that never arrived.^10
This desire for equalization underlies our sense of justice. It’s been
codified throughout the ages into rules and laws, such as the Babylonian king
Hammurabi’s classic “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” or the
biblical Golden Rule, “Do unto others what you would have done unto you.”
In evolutionary biology, it’s known as “reciprocal altruism,”^11 and in game
theory, it’s called a “tit for tat” strategy.^12
Newton’s First Law generates our sense of morality. It underlies our
perceptions of fairness. It is the bedrock of every human culture. And . . .
It is the operating system of the Feeling Brain.
While our Thinking Brain creates factual knowledge around observation
and logic, the Feeling Brain creates our values around our experiences of
pain. Experiences that cause us pain create a moral gap within our minds, and
our Feeling Brain deems those experiences inferior and undesirable.
Experiences that relieve pain create a moral gap in the opposite direction, and
our Feeling Brain deems those experiences superior and desirable.
One way to think about it is that the Thinking Brain makes lateral
connections between events (sameness, contrasts, cause/effect, etc.), while the