[1] See Paul Andrew Powell, (2004). Steady Bang: The Mysterious Disappearance of Sam Paradise. On the above issue, Paradise writes: “The idea that self-awareness liberated consciousness only 3,000 years ago, implying that your pre-historic ancestors could create art, or perform ritualistic burial rites without an awareness of their own intentions; indeed, that entire civilizations as formidable as Egypt and Mesopotamia were capable of functioning sans consciousness, runs counter-intuitive for most people. But it is important to emphasize that I do not mean that people did not possess cognitive abilities such as thought, or even reason, but rather that they did not think or reason consciously. It’s not that complex behavior does not require cognition, it’s that, to a larger degree than one would think, complex cognition does not necessarily require consciousness. Obviously, much cognitive behavior can, and does, occur without our consciousness of it. The salient question here is this: Was the degree of collective cognition necessary for these ancient societies to function greater than the degree of collective cognition that could function without consciousness? The idea here is that the ‘I’ which is ‘inscribed in language’ demands a sufficiently complex semiotic flow to emerge and present itself, and that that level of semiotic flow only recently evolved. Contrary as it may run to common sense, consciousness came after civilization was well under way, because the brain activity necessary to create the kind of abstract thought needed to construct a metaphorical self is proportionately more complicated than the brain activity necessary to drive an early civilization. Your ancestors were semi-conscious automatons functioning with a kind of habituated proto-language,” pp. 215-16.
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It does imply all that you suggest. And I must attribute my inspiration to the writings of Julian Jaynes. But the idea that consciousness evolved, and that it possibly evolved much later than we might intuit, is not new to me, certainly.
And your question is the perfect response to the post, I think, as it all comes down to the nature of "self" and self-awarenesses' role in the mysterious presence of human consciousness.
Wow. This is bold. And pretty much impossible to swallow. The heads of Egyptian state ruled without thinking of themselves as apart from their actions? The guy who counted his purchases and marked them down wasn't thinking as a individual who would be affected by his economic gambles? The woman bartering or exchanging coins (did they have coins in ancient Egypt?) wasn't wondering what she could purchase tomorrow if she made a better deal today? The servant/slave wasn't aware that their actions could bring a beating and pain, but wasn't calculating exactly the degree of disobedience the master(s) could handle? I do wonder about more collective societies. For instance, China does more team-learning than the U.S. and I …