John Searle (one of America's many big gun philosophers of mind today) claims that it's all down to the difference between syntax and semantics (yay, back on the linguistic track again).
His contention (controversial, and certainly not one I agree with), is that computers, for instance, can replicate the syntax of human interaction, but can not be claimed to 'know' (oh my word, the cross references are thrilling - would this be connaitre, savoir or comprendre?), the meaning (semantics) of what they do. His Chinese Room thought experiment is one of the most famous of the last 25 years or so.
The problem that this gives one (and now we're back to philosophy, language be darned) is that of dualism all over again. If the 'mind', 'consciousness' or 'meaning' are not mechanical, then whence do they come? Searle claims they are mechanical but different from anything we are able to model ("It's life, Jim, but not as we know it"), because we will never, using the empirical third person reference pojnt, be able to investigate meaning, which requires a first person reference point.
And of course, Jerry Fodor believes we will never know what it is like to be a bat. Daniel Dennett believes he has 'Quined qualia', and Hilary Putnam believes something else altogether...
cheer
the sunshine warrior
