Asked question: What else do I need [to study/learn] for AI?
Answer on waking: Perception
Thinking on this a little, I realise perception must be key bcs this is the route/mechanism by (or, gateway through) which one experiences the world (= other) & from this one can begin to sort, categorise, pattern-seek & understand.
A realisation stemming from this is: without perception there can be no cognition (which I say must also be vital for intelligence) bcs perception creates the stimuli which ‘feed’ the cognitive processes.
Another key realisation is: ‘discrimination’ (used in its true sense) is the basis of intelligence. If you can’t perceive difference then you can’t create categories thus you can’t compute anything about either ‘self wrt other’ or ‘other wrt self’ or even ‘other1 wrt other2’, & so on.
This discriminating – ie ‘finding difference between’ – subject and object may also take place within the time stream too, eg subject is here in present moment and object is bought out of memory storage to be perceived with the mental faculties (the working memory). In this way, ‘other’ does not necessarily mean something or someone ‘out there’ but rather it means ‘something other than I as subject (the I that is doing the perceiving)’.
This last point has significance for so-called non-dual (yogic or buddhistic) spiritual systems which suggest there is no subject-object split, but merely the ‘illusion’ of it. Yet, how can one really know that to be true, since for this ‘transcended consciousness state’ to be activated, it requires one to lose consciousness of ‘self’, and it is only upon regaining that initial ‘self consciousness’ can one know that this ‘event’ or ‘episode’ must have occurred.
And would that not then make the drunkard and the sleeping beauty equally ‘spiritual’?