> The computer is still doing only syntax, even while appearing to do semantics.
Why do you assume people are not doing the same?
> But humans really do semantics. Nobody questions this, or challenges it, because it is self-evident.
It is no more self evident than your claim that computers don't do semantics.
Your argumentation is circular:
IF computers can't do semantics, and IF humans do, then clearly the humans and computers must be fundamentally different. But your claim that computers can't do semantics (as opposed to, a claim that we don't yet know how to program computers to do semantics) is assuming that humans and computers are fundamentally different - if we are not, and the materalist hypothesis holds, there is simply no basis for assuming that we are fundamentally different (as categories; clearly current computers are not structured as human brains).
> It is easier to be an idiot, because that doesn't put your funding in jeopardy.
Less name calling, and more of an argument that isn't resting on a logical flaw might be preferable.
Why do you assume people are not doing the same?
> But humans really do semantics. Nobody questions this, or challenges it, because it is self-evident.
It is no more self evident than your claim that computers don't do semantics.
Your argumentation is circular:
IF computers can't do semantics, and IF humans do, then clearly the humans and computers must be fundamentally different. But your claim that computers can't do semantics (as opposed to, a claim that we don't yet know how to program computers to do semantics) is assuming that humans and computers are fundamentally different - if we are not, and the materalist hypothesis holds, there is simply no basis for assuming that we are fundamentally different (as categories; clearly current computers are not structured as human brains).
> It is easier to be an idiot, because that doesn't put your funding in jeopardy.
Less name calling, and more of an argument that isn't resting on a logical flaw might be preferable.