You apparently don't understand how computers work.
There is no "meaning" associated with any variable or its value, and there cannot be.
There is no "meaning" associated with any variable or its value, and there cannot be.
You appears to like to jump to conclusions.
> There is no "meaning" associated with any variable or its value, and there cannot be.
Please give me a definition of "meaning" that can be applied to a human brain and not to a computer. And what is the evidence that it can not be applied to a computer?
You are also jumping to the conclusion that, if as you claim, the brain depends on something that can't be explained under the materialistic hypothesis, that a computer cannot, yet you have not even presented an argument for why that would be so.
You associate a meaning to the symbol "dog". You think of an animal that barks, wags its tail, chases cats and squirrels, and is happy to see you when you get home. You associate something in the real world what that symbol. (That is the very meaning of doing semantics.)
The computer does nothing of the sort with the symbol "dog".
The plain reading of what you've written above is so trivially simple to implement in a computer that it is covered in every introductory algorithm course, so I presume you have either given a definition of "meaning" that is overly simplistic, or have a definition of "associate a meaning" that is substantially more complicated than a plain reading of the words.
Our act of arbitrary categorization of patterns into "syntax" and "semantics" just seems to obscure that fact that they are just two arbitrary encodings of patterns.
How can we know that one pattern is equal to another pattern in a different encoding? Don't we agree on these mappings with other pattern spaces (read humans)? As we communicate, so do our pattern spaces start interacting, and all we can hope for is a convergence on the mappings sans encoding.
That's the exact point of contention, whether semantics can be represented by syntax is unknown currently, though it must hold in a materialistic world. If it can't, as some believe, then it isn't an arbitrary categorization.
It seems that the brains that possess the link are busy implementing it's isomorphic structure in technology, while the brains that do not possess the link are contributing nothing as they are still in a more "primitive" state? (Primitive meaning that they lack the linkage to see that the terms are really structurally isomorphic on the grand scale of things)
It would be interesting to know what input those brains that do not possess the link require to start possessing it.
Can there exist brains that will never make the link?
Materialism has ample evidence to support it; dualism has no good evidence, it is therefore dualism that is on trial, not materialism.