 Searle’s identification of meaning with interpretation in this passage is important. Searle’s point is clearly true of the causally inert formal systems of logicians. A semantic interpretation has to be given to those symbols by a logician. When we move from formal systems to computational systems, the situation is more complex. As many of Searle’s critics (e.g. Cole 1984, Dennett 1987, Boden 1988, and Chalmers 1996) have noted, a computer running a program is not the same as “syntax alone”. A computer is an enormously complex electronic causal system. State changes in the system are physical. One can interpret the physical states, e.g. voltages, as syntactic 1’s and 0’s, but the intrinsic reality is electronic and the syntax is “derived”, a product of interpretation. The states are syntactically specified by programmers, but when implemented in a running machine they are electronic states of a complex causal system embedded in the real world. This is quite different from the abstract formal systems that logicians study. Dennett notes that no “computer program by itself” (Searle’s language) – e.g. a program lying on a shelf – can cause anything, even simple addition, let alone mental states. The program must be running. Chalmers (1996) offers a parody in which it is reasoned that recipes are syntactic, syntax is not sufficient for crumbliness, cakes are crumbly, so implementation of a recipe is not sufficient for making a cake. Implementation makes all the difference; an abstract entity (recipe, program) determines the causal powers of a physical system embedded in the larger causal nexus of the world. 