[anigbrowl]

I would argue that a sense of experience is a necessary precursor for that, and also that intelligence and consciousness are two different things, although (if I read you right) the latter certainly informs the former. Barry Sanders' A is for OX has many well-sourced musings on the emergence of consciousness as a product of literary capability vs. a purely oral tradition which you might find interesting, and of course I think everyone needs to read Jaynes, Dennett, Hofstatder on these topics.