Simply put, we feel emotion because we have bodies. Evocations of these embodied experiences are woven into the networks that create meaning. Lacking the experiences of embodiment, a computer would necessarily construct different kinds of networks. In particular, the profound role that emotion plays in creating meaning would be absent. Perhaps it is possible to simulate emotional colorings by methodologies appropriate to computers.
Embodiment also plays an important role in constructing the contexts that determine meanings.
As Simon points out, meaning is context-dependent, for it is the context that determines which of the possible associations in a network are appropriate for a given instance. The problem is not unlike formulating a grammar adequate to account for well-formed utterances. We know the appropriate contexts because we move and act in the world. Computers can't think, Dreyfus argues, because they lack bodies. Rodney Brooks has specialized in creating mobile robots that learn about the world by interacting with it directly rather than by using a central representation created by programmers.