pages 35 to 55

One important aspect addressed in this part of the book is the question what the key to intelligence is; is it knowledge, a knowledge-independent core, a combination of both or perhaps even something different?
Whatever the answer is, I believe that so much is probably true: We won't be able to put our fingers on any single aspect. Given the extremely complex structure of our brain, a simple answer simply doesn't appear conceivable.
However, it seems likely that intelligence emerges from a very sophisticated interconnectedness of various underlying substructures.
My first thought was that knowledge must be one of these substructures. After all it is the case that without knowledge one is lost in time and space - without being able to integrate sensory inputs into meaningful patterns. But then again I can imagine a system to start out completely without any knowledge at all and to emerge into an actually intelligent system merely by analyzing the incoming patterns via a "knowledge-independent core". Immediately after birth/creation of such a system the agent may not be intelligent yet in the way we think of intelligence. But I am willing to call a system intelligent even if it is only potentially intelligent, i.e. if it has the inherent ability to gain intelligence.