I will write more about human emotions.
A very good book about the biology and genetics of human emotions is "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" by Sapolsky. Sapolsky writes from the position of materialistic scientist not accounting for soul, but still I find his explanations very well explaining the biochemical part of our emotions.
Strength of our emotions is correlated with our poor ability to think. Our logical capacities are small, our minds are cluttered, our thinking is poorly organized, and our lives are short, so most of the life we are acting without thinking much and even without the ability to think much. Yet, our life is tough physically, so in most cases we are balancing on the verge of death, constantly using our minds for staying alive. Many of our activities require fast reaction, while we are not capable of perceiving what is happening and what are we to do. The weakness of our logical mind is compensated by much natural automation of our thinking which is achieved by mechanisms of emotion, intuition and habits.
I already described intuition earlier in the book. Emotions and habits are part of the system and have similar qualities as intuition - they help acting without thinking.
Habits are quite simple to understand. We have tons of habits. Many things we do automatically. Take for example driving a car. It takes over 30 hours of practice to learn driving a car. These hours have to be spread in time, about 1 hour of practice every few days. As a human drives a car first few times, she utilizes her logical thinking capacities. It takes time to watch things moving around and controls of the car and calculate what to do. As she learns more, she figures out that much of the information is not necessary and only few things need to be taken in consideration while driving. These observation-action reactions become automatic and become hardwired in our systems. Much of that happens in the brain, but some happens in spine and peripheral nerves. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that etheric and other bodies also undergo some transformation. Maybe a human psyche becomes linked to the spirit of driving. That I am only guessing. When habit is formed, the reactions become much easier and faster. Some people even consider driving a form of rest, so little effort it takes. I am also guessing that some energy of the burned fuel is absorbed by the human while driving. In the same way bonfire is energizing, possibly driving a combustion vehicle is energizing too. Also shaking of the car on the road helps circulation and crossing electromagnetheric patterns is also energizing. Driving is also an aesthetic experience. While driving in the country, I like stopping once in a while, meditating, and sampling the nature by taking brief walks in woods, smelling and sensing. There is a huge variety of views and driving is often a novel experience. Did I mention that novelty seeking is one of our traits? We like experiencing new things and our higher selves enjoy this too.
Our scientists have a limited understanding how thinking works. They understand that electric and chemical mechanisms are involved. Much is defined by neuronal plasticity, propagation of axons, and regulation of synaptic contacts. Scientists understand that often memory is distributed over the brain and not located individual neurons. What are the mechanisms for short and long term memory is a mystery for mainstream scientists. I learned from Adrian Dvir, who learned from the aliens, that memory is stored as a code in etheric molecule polymers which are synthesized in etheric body in synapses. The memory molecules are linear, seem to be synthesized on synapses and seem to be hanging there as brunches like seaweed. This makes sense and is very cool. I wish to learn more about this. When it comes to the ideas of soul and ether, etheric and other higher bodies, mainstream scientists have a mental block. Most are so scared of spirituality that they can not even allow for non-material phenomena. This is mostly due to very active witch-hunt in science. I have had once an experience of talking to a witch hunter in person. This was a nice gentleman, a professor, academically funded, who was actively hunting for alternative thinkers and "exposing" them in his publications in scientific and popular literature. This was his way of earning the living. He hoped to expose me but somehow I was spared, since at the moment, I didn't have a good story for him to expose.
So habits are routines which we repeat many times and which become hard-wired in our thinking apparatus.
Here is a computer analogy. Some of the computer functions are programmed in software. It takes time for the computer to receive an input signal, analyze and convert it into an output signal. For some basic functions our engineers circumvent the most repetitive calculations into hardware solutions. Instead of software logic, they often use hard-wired logic with much faster elements. Often these solutions are even not digital but analogous. These are faster and often more reliable, but not flexible. Software is easier to change than hard-wired circuits.
It is hard to say what is the mechanism for hard-wiring in our thinking apparatus. Likely these are certain neuronal networks which are activated very quickly by certain specific codes. These could be initiated by sophisticated controls: certain state of activity, like driving, certain images, words, feelings and sequences of events etc. Say, if something unexpected is happening while driving, I would normally turn on my alert reaction which is grab the steering wheel stronger, fix my position in the car by pressing my left foot against the bottom front part of the flooring, put my right foot on the break ready to engage it, my alert systems are activated, I start registering everything happening. If the cars in front of me unexpectedly stop, I have pre-programmed myself to get off the lane onto the road shoulder, so the cars behind wouldn't smash my car from behind. This doesn't require much of my thinking since all is preprogrammed and tried many times. This seems to be an algorithm to work best, I have thought it out, and empirically optimized it for self and my car. Parts of it I copied from other people, primarily from the reaction of Depardieu in similar situation in "La chevre", my favorite movie. He likely was taught by professional car race drivers.