What does this all mean physically? You talk about a symbolic reasoning system consisting of logic assertions and such, but any symbolic reasoning system ultimately has to be made out of atoms. How can I look at one lump of atoms and tell that it’s a symbolic reasoning system, and another lump and tell that it’s just random junk?
You can’t, because you can interpret any system as a symbolic reasoning system. You don’t need to ask whether a system is a symbolic reasoning system; you need to ask whether it’s conscious.
What does this all mean physically? You talk about a symbolic reasoning system consisting of logic assertions and such, but any symbolic reasoning system ultimately has to be made out of atoms. How can I look at one lump of atoms and tell that it’s a symbolic reasoning system, and another lump and tell that it’s just random junk?
You can’t, because you can interpret any system as a symbolic reasoning system. You don’t need to ask whether a system is a symbolic reasoning system; you need to ask whether it’s conscious.