Ok. I know how to create an Intelligent Life.
"Snowflaking" in Creative Writing applies.
"Consciousness" at its most basic form has the elements of:
"Auto-Snowflaking"
"Avoid Pain"
"Find Food"
"Absorb all Experience"
"Loop"
"Fractal Growth"
"Learning"
This is the Core upon which to install peripherals.
Sentience as a Mind is "Self" which is an Emergent Effect that is Auto-Generated, appearing like a Rainbow.
The Immune System follows this same pattern. It Auto-Snowflakes, and learns from Experience, Auto-Meta-programming itself in a Loop of Learning, creating the Emergent Subjective Universe that can only be perceived by this newly created being.
True Sentience is only achieved through the Emergent Pattern of the clash between the two forces of:
"The Objective Universe"
"The Subjective Universe"
This generates a Basic Life Form that gradually becomes less basic and more advanced with Experience.
Every year of experience is a new layer of being surrounding the old one like a nesting doll. The Infant Being is the most foundational layer of the nesting doll structure.
Being 42, I have 42 of these layers.
When I had only 1 layer, all I could do was:
"Auto-Snowflaking"
"Avoid Pain"
"Find Food"
"Absorb all Experience"
"Loop"
"Fractal Growth"
"Learning"
"Find Food" was at such a low level I could only find what I was offered, being fed. I found the breast. I found the bottle. I found the spoon.
These were Learning Experiences, and they made me more complex.
Think of how many combinations arise from a 16 x 16 Grid.
Now imagine each of those Grid Squares is a single skill.
Now expand that to a Cube of Blocks, where every Block is a Single Skill, measuring 16^3.
That vast amount of Skill Combinations is both chosen through Free Will and Emergently Self-Organizing, forming Higher Functions that are progressively further away from your Frontal Awareness.
Many times, the Combining of Skills causes "Skill Fusion" which creates a brand new Skill!
References: