I completely disagree. The classical approach you mention has been tried many times, most famously by the Cyc Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyc) without great results. AFAIK, nowadays the "no-model, pure statistical" approach is the norm
I don't think something like that (pure statistical) qualifies as a mind. Neither would the Cyc project you linked to.
I wasn't trying to say anything qualitative about what I think the underlying mechanism of what an artificial-mind will be, but rather that I don't think we can just conjure up a mind that already knows stuff. I think that whatever we end up creating, it will still be something that has to be taught about the world.
