Comment by encyclopedism

The definition of things such as reasoning, understanding, intellect are STILL open academic questions. Quite literally humans greatest minds are currently attempting to tease out definitions, whatever we currently have falls short. For example see the hard problem of consciousness.

However I can attempt to provide insight by taking the opposite approach here. For instance what is NOT reasoning. Getting a computer to follow a series of steps (an algorithm) is NOT reasoning. A chess computer is NOT reasoning it is following a series of steps. The implications of assuming that the chess computer IS reasoning would have profound affects on so much, for example it would imply your digital thermostat also reasons!