Capacity to reason

The capacity to reason is usually taken as defining what human beings are and as distinguishing us from other things that are alive. If we understand reason as being disembodied, then our bodies are only incidental to what we are. If we understand reason as mechanical—the sort of thing a computer can do—then we will devalue human intelligence as computers get more efficient. If we understand rationality as the capacity to mirror the world external to human beings then we will devalue those aspects of the mind that can do infinitely more than that. If we understand reason as merely literal, we will devalue art.—George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, xvi