Suppose we are willing to grant that proposition. Chance events may create juxtapositions that have meaning for observers, even though no intension was involved in producing the meaning. Drawing from arguments that Simon advances, I will discuss three objections to this proposition. Then I will briefly consider the value that his definition of meaning has for literary criticism, independent of the role that it may play in debates about artificial intelligence. Simon correctly observes that meanings come from emotional experiences as well as from cognition.
Emotion is generated by complex feedback loops between the lower brain and endocrine system.
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.