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Audio Artificial intelligence and the nature of consciousness

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that consciousness is not a computational process that can be replicated in silicon, but a material property of highly organised biological matter — specifically, the human brain as it has evolved through natural and social history. Daniel Morley argues that artificial intelligence, however advanced, can only ever simulate aspects of cognition, not reproduce consciousness itself. The claim rests on a dialectical materialist distinction between the quantitative complexity of machine learning and the qualitative leap represented by self-aware, socially-conditioned human thought. The article therefore rejects both the mechanistic reductionism that equates mind with computation and the idealist notion that consciousness is a separate substance or ghost in the machine.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws directly on the dialectical materialist tradition, particularly Engels' Dialectics of Nature and Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Morley deploys the dialectical categories of quantity into quality, the unity and interpenetration of opposites, and the negation of the negation to argue that consciousness emerges from matter under specific conditions — it is not reducible to it. The article situates itself within the Marxist philosophical tradition's long-standing critique of both mechanical materialism (which cannot explain the emergence of new properties) and idealism (which treats mind as primary). It also engages with the Soviet psychological tradition, particularly Vygotsky and Luria, who argued that higher mental functions are socially and historically constituted, not merely biological. The piece thus rejects the computational theory of mind dominant in contemporary cognitive science and AI research, aligning instead with the materialist insistence that consciousness is a product of nature developing through history, not a programme running on hardware.

Conjunctural Relevance

Written in 2019, the article responds to a period of rapid advance in machine learning, neural networks, and automation — developments that were already reshaping labour processes and fuelling ideological debates about the replacement of human workers by intelligent machines. The rise of "deep learning" and high-profile claims about artificial general intelligence (AGI) had generated both utopian Silicon Valley narratives and dystopian fears of technological unemployment and machine domination. Morley's intervention is specifically aimed at cutting through this ideological fog: the real question is not whether machines will become conscious, but how the capitalist mode of production deploys automation to intensify exploitation and discipline labour. The article implicitly connects to the broader Marxist analysis of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, where automation represents both a drive to reduce variable capital and a source of new contradictions. The conjuncture also includes the growth of platform capitalism, algorithmic management, and the ideological function of AI hype in legitimating capitalist restructuring.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several questions open. It does not fully develop the relationship between consciousness and language, nor does it explore in depth the implications of AI for the labour theory of value — specifically, whether machine labour can be said to produce value. These questions are taken up elsewhere in the IDOM corpus, particularly in articles on automation and the rate of profit, and in broader Marxist debates on the "general intellect" and the Fragment on Machines from Marx's Grundrisse. The argument also points toward the need for a more detailed engagement with contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy of mind from a dialectical materialist standpoint — a task the RCI has addressed in subsequent theoretical discussions and Against the Stream episodes. The article's treatment of consciousness as socially constituted invites further exploration of ideology, reification, and the production of subjectivity under capitalism, themes developed in the work of later Marxist theorists such as Evald Ilyenkov.

Connections

This article should be read alongside Engels' Dialectics of Nature, Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, and Ilyenkov's Dialectical Logic and The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx's Capital. Within the contemporary Marxist tradition, it connects to debates on automation and value in the work of authors such as Paul Cockshott and the Weekly Worker stable, as well as to the broader critique of transhumanism and posthumanism. For the specific question of AI and labour, the relevant IDOM articles include those on the rate of profit, automation, and the future of work. The article also implicitly engages with the non-Marxist literature on consciousness, particularly the work of John Searle (the Chinese Room argument) and the embodied cognition tradition, though it does not name them directly.

Key Quotes

  1. "Consciousness is not a thing, it is a process — a material process that takes place in the brain, but one that cannot be reduced to the mere sum of its biological parts."

  2. "The attempt to reduce consciousness to computation is a form of mechanical materialism that denies the qualitative leap that occurs when matter organises itself to a sufficient level of complexity."

  3. "A machine can simulate thought, but simulation is not the same as the real thing. A computer can calculate faster than any human, but it does not understand what it is calculating."

  4. "The question of artificial intelligence cannot be separated from the social relations within which it develops. Under capitalism, automation is not a liberation from labour but a new weapon in the hands of the ruling class."

  5. "Dialectical materialism teaches us that consciousness is not a mysterious substance infused into the body, nor is it a programme running on a biological computer. It is the highest product of matter's own development through nature and history."

  6. "The real danger is not that machines will become conscious and enslave us, but that capitalism will use machines to degrade human consciousness — to turn thinking workers into passive appendages of the automated system."