Oh, I think I may understand your confusion, now. I don’t think of mathematics and logic as equals! I am more confident in first-order logic than I am in, say, ZFC set theory (though I am extremely confident in both). However, formal system-space is much larger than the few formal systems we use today; I wanted to emphasize that. Logic and set theory were selected for because they were useful, not because they are the only possible formal ways of thinking out there. In other words, I was trying to right the wrong question, why do mathematics and logic transcend the rest of reality?
Oh, I think I may understand your confusion, now. I don’t think of mathematics and logic as equals! I am more confident in first-order logic than I am in, say, ZFC set theory (though I am extremely confident in both). However, formal system-space is much larger than the few formal systems we use today; I wanted to emphasize that. Logic and set theory were selected for because they were useful, not because they are the only possible formal ways of thinking out there. In other words, I was trying to right the wrong question, why do mathematics and logic transcend the rest of reality?