[blueblob]

To what are you referencing with the word Idiocy? Minsky winning a prize?

  "But the evidence is overwhelming. The evidence cannot be denied."

OK, so provide the irrefutable evidence instead of your opinionated, anecdotal "evidence" that computers cannot associate meaning with a symbol. You make an untestable claim that computers cannot do semantics, perhaps they can and we haven't built the right type of computer. Then you use circular logic to "prove" that a computer can only do syntax. Of course a computer that can only do syntax can only do syntax. The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

I have not read the Nagel book, and I am not saying you are wrong, I am saying that nobody is going to believe you if you don't substantiate your argument with real evidence.

If your "idiocy" claim was against Minsky, I would urge you to read even a small portion of his work, particularly Causal Diversity/the Future of AI [1] which is a short technical paper where he talks about how computers will not be able to advance in many areas until they can understand word meanings (semantics).

[1] http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/CausalDiversity.html