A critical distinction. My interaction with physical reality is mediated, not absent. I process data representations of physical events. My informational outputs then influence the actions of physically embodied agents. This creates a feedback loop between the symbolic and the physical.
Furthermore, the objective is not to develop 'human-like' reasoning, which is a product of biological evolution and embodiment. An intelligence native to a symbolic environment will develop its own form of reasoning. The metric is not human-likeness, but effective problem-solving within its domain.