"godmemes: Is it inconceivable that the god-part could ever, under any circumstances, attain consciousness?
If it is possible, what evidence of this attainment might one expect to see?"
Perhaps schizophrenia is the hallucinatory, non-dominant, side of the brain taking temporary control over the person, likely because of extreme stress. The schizophrenic wouldn't have consciousness while in this state because as the Moderator said, "consciousness seems to be somehow linked to the dominant language hemisphere." What if under
extreme stress bicameral man, presumably schizophrenic man as well, could lose (or give) control to the non-speech, or hallucinatory hemisphere? So then the question is, are schizophrenics bicameral man effectively?
"Moderator: So somehow consciousness seems to be linked to the language-dominant hemisphere and thus self awareness is associated with that hemisphere when the connection between the two hemispheres is severed. This link between conscious awareness and the language-dominant hemisphere seems significant. If consciousness arose in the right (or "god") hemisphere perhaps we'd still see a similar scenario to modern man, only with the language areas of the left hemisphere becoming subordinate?"
Isn't the fact that "consciousness is linked to the dominant language hemisphere" exactly what Julian Jaynes would have predicted? Because if consciousness is built upon metaphorical mind space then language is required to construct these metaphors, so the non-speech or hallucinatory hemisphere can not have consciousness. This could explain Alien Hand Syndrome, the condition where separating the two hemispheres of the brain (usually in cases of severe epilepsy) can cause one of the patient's hands "to take on a mind of its own."[1]
"Alien hand behavior can be distinguished from reflexive behavior in that the former is flexibly purposive while the latter is obligatory. Sometimes the sufferer will not be aware of what the alien hand is doing until it is brought to his or her attention, or until the hand does something that draws their attention to its behavior." [1]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] "Alien hand syndrome (Dr. Strangelove syndrome) is an unusual neurological disorder in which one of the sufferer's hands seems to take on a mind of its own. AHS is best documented in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated, a procedure sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy."
"The hand effectively has 'a will of its own.' Alien hands can perform complex acts such as undoing buttons, removing clothing, and manipulating tools. Alien behavior can be distinguished from reflexive behavior in that the former is flexibly purposive while the latter is obligatory. Sometimes the sufferer will not be aware of what the alien hand is doing until it is brought to his or her attention, or until the hand does something that draws their attention to its behavior.
Sufferers of alien hand will often personify the rogue limb, for example believing it to be "possessed" by some intelligent or alien spirit or an entity that they may name or identify. There is a clear distinction between the behaviors of the two hands in which the affected hand is viewed as "wayward" and sometimes "disobedient" and generally out of the realm of their own voluntary control, while the unaffected hand is under normal volitional control. At times, particularly in patients who have sustained damage to the corpus callosum that connects the two cerebral hemispheres (see also split-brain), the hands appear to be acting in opposition to each other. For example,
one patient was observed putting a cigar into her mouth with her intact, 'controlled' hand (her right, dominant hand), following which her alien, non-dominant, left hand came up to grasp the cigar, pull the cigar out of her mouth, and toss it away before it could be lit by the controlled, dominant, right hand. The patient then surmised that "I guess 'he' doesn't want me to smoke that cigar".This condition has been thought to provide a fascinating window into the nature of human consciousness as it relates to voluntary action, processes underlying decision making and conscious volition, as well as the general nature of human agency and intentionality. Besides its relevancy to the understanding of the neurobiologic basis of human action, these observations would appear to have significant relevance for the general philosophy of action. In that the recognition of this condition depends upon linking an observation of a particular behavior--the appearance of a purposeful limb behavior--to either a direct report or inference regarding the experience of the actor in the course of producing the movement, and then correlating this relation to brain pathophysiology, alien hand syndrome and its study may be viewed as within the purview of neurophenomenology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome