And it’s genetic because it was required for how we evolved. Humans are social creatures and you had to fit in with the pack to be able to survive. Imagine if no one could tell what emotion anyone is, there would be chaos in the caves as everyone is continually setting each other off by not knowing how the other is feeling.

Essentially we are a social species and are telepathic. Meaning: we can tell from a distance how another is feeling and in some cases what they may be thinking. We do this through facial expressions and body language, not mystical energy vibrations. But IMO it’s just as magical.

Pretty important in a group society to be telepathic. When everyone is contributing to the group, not just themselves, there’s danger of exploitation, coasting, and abuse. Being telepathic helps root this out, keeping the group efficient and aligned. Maybe this is one reason so many people fear diversity and cultural divergence: the more complicated people are, the harder it is to be telepathic with their outward signs. The more homogenous, the easier. And circling back to this post, we may not all have the same physical signs of an emotion, globally, but the point is for us to have them among any one group that lives together. So you can be damn sure that if smiling and crying are not universal, we at least have universally strong mechanisms for figuring out what the signs are for our culture and then exhibiting them. All unconscious.

Note also that we have amazing actors among us, which suggests that the strong rewards you can get from abusing the group have driven the evolution of fraud mechanisms themselves.