Semantics can emerge from programs that learn
A system with sufficiently complex learning mechanisms can possess semantics if it meets a principle of inductive adequacy: ie the system should possess inductive mechanisms capable of producing all the knowledge constructs it uses in its behaviour.
For example, a rule-based system must be able to generate new rules, a frame-based a system must be able to generate new frames, and so forth.
Paul Thagard, 1986.