Consciousness as the spin-off and schizophrenia as the price of language

The human brain's torque—the twisting asymmetry that creates four distinct chambers of association cortex compared to the two chambers in other mammals—is the feature that enables language by separating thought from speech production in the frontal lobes and meaning from speech perception in the occipito-parieto-temporal cortex. Psychotic symptoms such as hearing voices, experiencing thoughts as not one's own, and incoherent speech can be understood as leakage between these four quadrants. Consciousness is a byproduct of this arrangement, and schizophrenia is the price humans pay for language.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Hearing “voices”, the experience of thoughts as not one’s own, and incoherent speech are symptoms of mental illness (usually termed “schizophrenia”). Here I argue that (1) the “torque” is the feature that defines the human brain as four chambered by comparison with the two chambers of the generalized mammalian brain, (2) by separating “thought” from speech production in the frontal lobes, and “meaning” from speech perception in occipito-parieto-temporal association cortex the torque thereby confers on the species the capacity for language, and (3) the phenomena of psychosis can be seen as “leakage” from one to another of the four quadrants of association cortex. Thus consciousness is the spin-off and schizophrenia is the price that Homo sapiens pays for language.