[posterboy]

Your warning is noble, but I read comments to decide whether the topic is useful. I found the negative comments convincing, so I don't mind questioning the topic further.

Self-awarenes was worked out with "I know that I don't know" and again, but in positive terms with "I think therefore I am". These are the most basic forms of reflection, a y-combinator differentiating endlessly. With literarry writing, this reflection could be stretched out over generations, yielding a national identity, but oral transmission of religious teachings had been practiced before, just with a higher rate of mutation. Such verbalization is important for stability, and similarity is important for discoverability, but if verbalization hadn't happened, the perhaps because it goes without saying.

PS: A single threaded cpu doesn't need to spell out distributed computing primitives, either. It still may use signals, in many cases, even if implemented completely in software.

PPS: maybe there's an interesting parallel from natural language to the progression from imperative language over object oriented or declarative, to agent based programming. Bicameral Petri Nets ...