I think intelligent life may require a common bootstrap for gaining that sentience.

What questions or statements, must a baby's brain make, before it is a reasoning human?

"Am I aware of myself?"
"Yes."
"I am God."

After that, everything else that is learned, becomes falsifications of the "I am God." function.

If I can't do (x), I am not God.
Then you slowly begin to identify who you really are.