Under physicalism, what is the ontological status of the laws of logic, and what is their relationship to the laws of physics?

Question

SCOPE: I'm seeking answers from the perspective of physicalism.

If physicalism is true, what is the ontological status of the laws of logic, and what is their relationship to the laws of physics? Are the laws of logic ontologically fundamental, just as the laws of physics are? Are the laws of logic a subset of the laws of physics? Are the laws of logic prior to or more fundamental than the laws of physics? Or are the laws of logic merely human concepts (stored physically as ideas in human brains), developed as humans noticed patterns in reality that could be expressed logically? In that case, could one argue that logic is an emergent phenomenon derived from the laws of physics, which are fundamental?

See also: How does physicalism interpret mathematical theorems in physicalist terms?

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NOTE: As of now, there is no official tag laws-of-physics, so I used the tag laws-of-nature instead. If someone takes issue with this, please let me know in the comments. Relevant discussion: Is there a distinction between laws of nature and laws of physics?

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Which version of logic am I talking about?

Good question. Wikipedia has a disambiguation page that considers 3 cases:

Law of logic may refer to:

• Basic laws of Propositional Logic or First Order Predicate Logic
• Laws of thought, which present first principles (arguably) before reasoning begins
• Rules of inference, which dictate the valid use of inferential reasoning

My greedy self would encourage answers to ideally cover all three cases. However, if I were forced to only pick one, I would likely choose laws of thought which seem pretty fundamental.

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Addressing the charge of duplicate: this question is NOT about mathematics

This question is about logic, not mathematics. Assuming an equivalence between logic and mathematics is controversial, see:

• Can mathematics be reduced to arbitrary axioms and logic?
• What is the difference between logic and mathematics?
• What is the philosophical ground for distinguishing logic and mathematics?

See also the meta discussion: How is a question about logic a duplicate of a question about math?

Answer 1

The answer from a physicalist perspective may be that they simply do not exist and hence there is no need to talk about what it means for them to “physically” exist.

If the response to this is that it is self evident that they exist, I ask you to implore what makes you think this. We only ever have conscious experiences that may relate to an an idea, but never the idea itself.

Logic, just like math, are concepts that supervene on the physical. They do not exist except as descriptions of physical reality. In a sense, they are always attached and inherent to physical reality but they don’t, independently, exist.