This reminds me of this thread and others like it, which touch on the question of the neocortex’s purpose. Is understanding the neocortex alone enough to achieve AGI?
In my mind, I imagine the neocortex as an engine for modelling the world to extreme levels of abstraction and using that model to make predictions. While this makes it more than just a “pattern recognizer”, I think that alone still isn’t enough for AGI. You must match this engine with other systems which feed it with motivations/needs and leverage it to achieve goals. I often ask the question “what makes the system chose one action over another, or to take any action at all for that matter?”