This was a great question asked by a friend during a discussion about the dominant role the limbic plays in shaping behaviour. We'd been talking about the limbic as the centre of emotions in the brain, and his question was seeking to exlore an apparent contradiction for those people (like himself) who are very grounded and rational, rather than emotional (in Centaur terms the Warrior types). Does that lack of emotion mean that for them, the limbic is not engaged and not in control?
It's true the limbic is the centre of emotions in the brain, but it is more than that, it is a pattern recognition (and ultimately a pattern creation) system. It takes data from our senses and virtually instantly concludes (by pattern recognition) what sort of a situation it is that you are facing. It's response to the situation limits any subsequent cognitive thinking, for example by connecting only to "useful" memories of similar past situations. So this is why we talk about behaviour being driven by patterns in the limbic.
In the character style which is wedded to rationality it is the limbic which decides there is no place for emotion in this situation and which limits the thinking to gridded logic. So it is the blocking of emotional intelligence which itself demonstrates the limbic at work.
