THERE IS A WAY OUT of thinking theologically, i. e., metaphysically. The way out is to apply the methodology of the correct ontological analysis of the way that an adding-machine exists to everything else in the universe.

On the question of the adding machine - IT doesn't actually 'add' - it *has *no *function* - it exists in a modality of functionality and is functional - but 'functionality' is purely an abstraction - a reification that does not exist.

     What a calculator DOES do however is change the modality [the existential state] of the way it exists from one moment to the next - changing its manner of being a calculating entity between the events of one human finger pressure on the key-pad to the next.

     Our perception of these different existential modalities of the adding machine together with our a priori understanding of the nature of the human programming that took place in the factory when the object was manufactured make it possible for us to accept the read-out on the tiny screen as a useful mathematical fiction.

    The notion of 'addition' - the 'abstraction' [and like all abstractions 'addition' doesn't exist] of addition is something which the human designer and manufacturer has imprinted on the tiny circuit-board. The calculator exists in the way that it exists. That is why people are willing to pay good money  to buy adding-machines that do not add - but simply lie there and change the way that they exist in response to that which actually initiates the changes - the guy who punches the keys..

The calculator just lies there on the table or  in the palm of the hand changing the way it is the entity it is from one moment to the next. First it exists in mode [a] with the symbols 2 X 2 showing in its window, and then exists in mode [b] when the 'X' button is depressed - and then in mode [c] when the = button is pressed and the symbol 4 replaces the symbols 2 X 2 in the window. It doesn't 'think'
- it just changes its modality.

    It is we humans that attribute a 'real' situation of inter-entiative action and re-action as  the clicking of the keys and the appearance of different numbers pass before our eyes and   affect the way WE exist.  We call the operation or modalic changes of the metal and plastic object  'a calculation,' and derive an anthropocentric satisfaction and benefit from the way the  device exists and impinges upon our own neurophysical network patterning.

     In other words, whilst the machine has been changing its existential modes, similar existential modifications have been taking place within our own neuronal reticulation of interconnected, intersecting systems of specialised cellular components. Our neurological networks have been changing their existential configurations accordingly.

     Now I maintain that in the same way [or in a similar manner] to the way that the calculator just lies there on the table  in the condition in which it exists, changing from moment to moment - the human operator also just stands there [or sits there] in the way that he/she exists changing the condition in which he/she exists from moment to moment as the neurons and synapses in the brain becomes arranged in new ways in order to associate the symbols displayed by the computer with a set of contextually related internalised abstractions– and that's all there is to it.

     In other words the human brain doesn't really 'think' in the sense that 'thinking' is an abstraction that exists on another 'transcendental plane or dimension,' or in another mentalistic domain which is somehow separate from the holistic thinking body - it is simply a way in which our neuronally equipped bodybrain exists at that moment - the way our bodybrains exist - during those repeatable and self-referential recognisable modalities we call 'thinking.'


In fact 'thinking' is simply the way that we exist at a certain moment that is different from another moment when we are not thinking or thinking of something else - and the progression of these thinking events - these 'thinking event interstices' we call 'TIME'.

    Bottom line? It is sometimes possible to avoid thinking metaphysically - but it is not possible to avoid thinking in abstractions. At first this seems to be a contradiction, for surely abstractions are 'above the physical' or 'extra-physical,' and therefore must be metaphysical? The answer is that it is perfectly permissible to employ the convenience that abstractions provide for us, [as cognitive tools] as a 'surface level instrument' for communicative purposes, as long as we are aware at a deeper level of cognition THAT THEY ARE NOT REAL - AND DO NOT REALLY EXIST, and that they do not actually EVEN exist as ideas, [for ideas are abstractions which don't exist too] but that it is WE OURSELVES that exist and are existing in a modality of thinking abstractly or belching realistically - in a like manner to the adding machine, which exists changing its existential presence in modalities which we attribute to it as 'calculation.'


The 'calculation' doesn't exist 'in' the adding-machine, and the 'thinking' doesn't exist in the human. It is the calculating adding-machine that exists and the thinking human.

Difficult to grasp?  Then think about this. No 'action' whatsoever exists  in the whole of the cosmos - only acting entities exist  Your moving arm exists - but the 'movement' of the moving arm does not.

   What exists is the human and the adding-machine and your arm  existing in certain ever-changing existential modalities. So 'number' [math] being a human idea doesn't exist either, (it is the ideating human that exists)  and is no more than an amplification of the concept of things like 'straightness,' which allow us not only to consider the shortest distance between two points, but to calculate the curvilinear aspects and triangulate features of the world which surrounds us, and to count the number of entities with which we come into contact in a bus queue - but in the last analysis it is not the abstractions: 'straight, number, math, calculation, shortest, idea, curvilinear, triangulate, aspects, points, which exist - it is the thinking human brain which exists as part of the holistic bodybrain and the other entities in the cosmos that we humans strive to understand by employing the abstractional [non-existent] tools that have developed in humankind over the millennia