Rethinking AI, Consciousness, and the Future of Organisations
Why the metaphysical assumptions we carry matter more than ever for the future of work and intelligence
What if our most significant challenges aren’t just technological, but philosophical?
This question hit me during a seminar on Ageing Futures at the University of Bristol, one of those moments where a passing comment suddenly reframes everything.
At first, it sounds abstract, maybe even academic. But the more I sat with it, the more it reinforced my sense that our deepest beliefs about reality shape everything: from how we build organisations to how we imagine the future.
My mind jumped to Bernardo Kastrup and the content from the Essentia Foundation I’ve been exploring lately. There’s something about analytical idealism, Kastrup’s view that consciousness is the foundation of reality, that’s been nagging away at me for a while.
It doesn’t just reframe how we think and talk about AI and consciousness; it forces us to confront the metaphysical assumptions we unconsciously carry into our most challenging problems.
AI and the Illusion of Matter
Much of the current talk around AI is based on a physicalist/materialist view of the world. We consider intelligence to be something that can be computed, and we view the mind and awareness as emergent properties of complex arrangements of matter. The unstated assumption is that awareness will “emerge” from code if we keep changing parameters, improving architecture, optimising training iterations and scale.
However, this logic falls apart if you start with Kastrup’s idea that matter is not primary but comes from consciousness. You can’t get consciousness by putting together things that aren’t conscious, just like you can’t get wetness by building up dry sand.
This flips the AI debate. Instead of searching for signs of awareness in code, we ask how this tool supports conscious agents, real people, in making sense of their world?
From this point of view, AI isn’t a mind that is being made. It’s a complex tool that is part of consciousness, not something that carries it. And this small change in the way we think about AI at the metaphysical level has big effects on how we develop, judge, and interact with these systems.
Organisations as Entrenched Metaphysics
The physicalist position influences our understanding of AI and shapes our perceptions of human organisations.
A lot of management and leadership thinking still treats businesses like machines.
Everything is counted, measured, and controlled. People become parts of a system. Strategy? Just getting the cogs and levers to line up. Culture? Another variable to be ‘engineered’.
Think about the difference. A mechanical organisation may use standardised surveys and productivity indicators to measure its employees' engagement and then use "interventions" to improve those scores.
A consciousness-based approach would acknowledge that engagement arises from collective meaning and purpose, an aspect that can be nurtured but not manufactured. Such an approach is more than just old-fashioned thinking. It’s a metaphysical object.
This is a remnant of a physicalist/materialist worldview, influenced by Enlightenment thought and further solidified during the Industrial Age, when everything, including people, was perceived as passive matter in motion. This way of seeing made sense in a world driven by machines, efficiency, and linear progress. However, it also established a basis for our current imagination of the future, which manifests as a dominant ‘regime of anticipation’ that prioritises prediction, control, and measurable outcomes in the way we think.
We started organising our thinking, institutions, and futures around machine-like logic. Through the success of the Industrial Age, the physicalist/materialist worldview has colonised how we think about contemporary and future challenges, unintentionally blinkering our whole view of possibility. It is the epitome of the weight of the past.
However, if we change our metaphysical position to one that interprets reality as inherently experiential, subjective, and conscious, we must also alter our perspective on organisations. We can no longer regard them as machines.
Future Machines and Anticipation Regimes
In this context, my role in futures intelligence becomes particularly significant. A regime of anticipation (originates from science and technology studies (STS)) influences how we think about, prepare for, and create the future.
These regimes are metaphysical frames that influence which types of foresight are acceptable, while others are considered unscientific, foolish, or speculative. The dominant regimes are physicalist/materialist and grounded in an ontology that values prediction more than imagination. Control over emergence. They prioritise efficiency over uncertainty.
This is something we can observe everywhere. Government policy frameworks stress reducing risk and getting demonstrable results. Innovation laboratories typically limit “wild ideas” to what is possible and reasonable. These regimes influence how we plan, measure, and implement business change.
The most dominant anticipation model is predictive: it extrapolates trends, formulates plans, and imposes controls. It’s sleek, efficient, and deeply comforting, especially to overstretched managers lulled by the illusion of certainty. But this model is also metaphysically shallow.
What if we reframed our stance toward the future, aligning it with Kastrup’s analytical idealism? What if anticipation wasn’t about controlling what’s to come, but about participating in its unfolding, consciously, creatively, and relationally?
This shift is no small ask, especially for public institutions and corporations bound by entrenched assumptions about risk, return, share price and rational control. Not every organisation has the latitude of a privately owned entity like IKEA, free to reimagine its governance in the face of uncertainty. For many, the illusion of certainty isn’t just comforting, it’s structurally essential.
Designing beyond Materialism
Analytical idealism gives businesses a whole new area to create in:
From control to coherence
Instead of using metrics and goals to force alignment, coherence comes from having a shared meaning and purpose. Instead of making rules, leaders become storytellers and people who make meaning of things. Rather than working in functional silos, teams collaborate to solve important problems.
From optimisation to attainment
Instead of just looking at efficiency numbers, leaders learn to be aware of their organisations' rhythms, energy, and collective intelligence. They ask, “What wants to come out of this?” AND “How do we reach our goals?”
From output to experience
Success is not only about what we make but also about how we are together. The quality of relationships, the depth of involvement, and the richness of collective meaning-making are now real challenges for organisations. What if we accepted a different sort of expectation that fits with the metaphysics of consciousness? What if we didn’t try to guess what would happen in the future but instead tried to be a part of it?
These aren’t merely nice things to do. They’re real-world effects of changing the metaphysical foundations. When you see awareness as the most crucial thing, human experience becomes important in organisational design. And here’s the kicker:
these new forms won’t work unless leaders are willing to question their ideas about what is real, achievable, and valuable. The old metaphysics will keep returning the system to the only necessary measurements: predictability, control, and productivity.
Why Metaphysics Is Important Right Now
That’s why I think metaphysics is no longer just for philosophers. It’s a strategic necessity. It affects how we make AI, how we put people together, and how we plan for the future. The ramifications are extensive if the mind is the foundation of existence itself. We’re not just making minor changes to systems. We’re changing how we perceive, shape, and share the world.
There is already evidence that this change is happening. Companies that are trying out cultures based on purpose. AI researchers are looking into how humans and AI may work together instead of replacing each other. Foresight practitioners prioritise participation and engagement rather than prediction. These developments aren’t just happening independently; they’re signs of a bigger change.
I’m still figuring out what this means for my work. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps these ideas are evolving and will change. But I can’t shake the sense that introducing metaphysics into our thinking allows us to think differently and create new narratives.
After all, Einstein said,
“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”
eXplorulations is where I may bring these deeper thoughts to light. This isn’t just a philosophical question; it’s about understanding how our most basic beliefs affect the choices we make every day.
What changes may occur in your business if you saw people as conscious agents instead of as resources? I’d like to know how this works for you.