That's exactly Jaynes's theory: consciousness not only arrived after the invention of language, it arrived after the invention of writing, literature, agriculture, metallurgy, and government bureaucracy. And also, that it _could not_ have arisen without language because it is crucially founded in the capability of language to describe the world metaphorically.

You don't have to like it, but that's the theory that is being discussed.

A great majority of humanity remained illiterate just a few generations ago. It's absurd to posit they weren't conscious.

Hunter-gatherer and nomadic lifestyles are complex and require deep thought and planning and coordination. You can't do it purely reactively or carrying out simple scripts.

Its not so clear to me if it's the chicken or egg. So many things are good candidates for the key ingredient.

I personally think that consciousness is social theory of mind applied to the self, or something like simulating and being concerned with how the tribe sees you and interprets your intentions etc, forcing you to analyze yourself similarly to how you analyze others. This would mean that solitary animals are less conscious than social ones.

Probably the most fascinating idea there is right now in the field.

It might be right.

My intuition is that it’s not right - that you can have experience without language, images, and other “sensory objects” but I wonder how useful it is.

Just like a plasmic euphoria detached from any identity or process; or an endless, mindless, dread, that drones on for billions of years in the vacuum of space waiting to be liberated by sound, light, anything