"Heart has a reason which reason knows nothing of" - Blaise Pascal

“Heart has its reason which reason knows nothing of” is a famous quote on heart and head by Blaise Pascal. The contradiction between emotional and intellect/reasoning quotient during a decision making process is always imminent. Pascal here talks about religious beliefs which necessarily need not have any reasoning behind it. The word “reason” takes a different meaning in the first part of the sentence in comparison with the second. While the first one emphasizes the emotional quotient the second part show’s the impact of logical reasoning in the decision making. While emotional decisions have no reason, intellectual decisions are taken only when there is a sound reasoning behind it.

Though Pascal has said this he is probably not sure why it is so. Scientists like Steven Pinker have lately concluded on a few aspects of or our mind which influences this. “Love at first sight” is a simple example of emotional decision or a decision powered by our limbic part of the brain. Also, how many times have we seen somebody falling in love and later regretting their decision after some thinking. This decision which has a logical base is powered by our neocortex part of the brain. In a work place too, we often see a analyst view (logical decision) of the market being correct but at times we have also a gut/intuitive decisions (emotional decision) against a analyst view even becoming success.

Heart vs. head has always been a problem with decision making process. More often, even in the above “Love at first sight” example we can see that, a decision when powered by emotions have complete command over our logical decision capability and simply does not allow us to think at least for that point of time even if not forever. It is also considered that a decision taken by heart has more initiating capability than a decision taken by mind. Similarly, when decisions go wrong the after effect of an emotional decision going wrong takes a considerable psychological toll on us compared to a logical decision going wrong. This might make one conclude that a decision which is based on emotions might not be apt for a few occasions. But some say that logical thinking is something like a math equation and tells us a step by step process while a heart is multi dimensional and gives different perspective that might help us in a better decision making process.

Going back to Pascal it is indeed true that our beliefs like religious; our relationships with others are purely based on emotional content and there is no logical reasoning behind it but is purely powered by our bodily chemicals. This is what on most occasions tells us what we want to do and going to be in life and logical reasoning helps us in getting there.