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Lots of interesting issues here, and is useful to try and connect the bipartite story we're been discussing with Damasio's story. Thanks for starting us along that path ...

I find D's use of "emotion" and "feeling" slightly confusing (yes, we are, in D's vocabulary "emoting" first and foremost and yes, we are "always in an emotional state), but yes, I do think by "emotion" he means our unconscious activities (which, I think, makes those points less hard to understand). I'd emphasize that it is unconscious activities of ALL sorts ("emotional," "cognitive," etc). And I'd argue that it is far from all "largely unlearned." Our unconscious repertoire reflects genetic information but also our own experiences, and even stories we've heard from others (so yes, we are constantly "soaking up and storing .. knowledge of which we're unaware"). "Mangement of life" is, for me, a little sweeping. We "manage" life partly with our unconscious, partly with our conscious/story teller. And so "management of life" includes things we do without thinking about it, even without being aware of it. But it also includes "making new meaning, which is the business of story telling. We can manage without "making new meaning," but that's only part of our lives.