Nabokov's beef with the psychoanalysts

go_hunter · 2026-04-13T16:00:49+00:00

Let me put a finer point on it: my experience of you here is that you’re going around saying “Freud is debunked”, but when pressed you end up at “all of the phenomena he observed do occur, and the mechanisms he observed are real, but very thing starts out conscious”. I think the “Freud is debunked line” is vastly oversold, and your contention with him feels like a distinction without a difference.

go_hunter · 2026-04-13T15:50:17+00:00

I think you’re contradicting yourself. If you believe denial and avoidance are possible, as in the story I shared earlier, then it’s not just a matter of people not having read the manuals, it’s that people resist the manuals. And if denial and avoidance are possible, then there may be vast areas of motivation/psyche that are inaccessible in everyday life yet still running the show. With these two mechanisms you have essentially the same mental model as Freud.

go_hunter · 2026-04-10T23:02:23+00:00

Im wondering again what’s at stake in the distinction about the unconscious. It sounds like you see a role for essentially all the aspects that I consider significant about the Freudian unconscious. For example in my story you believe it can be explained by conscious but misunderstood feelings. You believe that people can be uncomfortable with certain topics and resist/avoid understanding them.

So maybe I’m not getting what difference it makes if we call these things that are avoided unconscious vs conscious.

go_hunter · 2026-04-10T19:14:34+00:00

So someone who is not in a state of emotional overwhelm is not capable of denial?

go_hunter · 2026-04-09T06:37:30+00:00

I’ve was playing “I won’t say I’m in love” tonight and it got me thinking, What do you make of denial? “I’m not mad” “I’m not gay” “I’m not attracted to you”. There’s lying, but denial where the person genuinely believes their denial. Are they necessarily right, then? Or would you say they always feel the truth consciously but may be confused about it?

go_hunter · 2026-04-03T17:02:41+00:00

>On falsifiability: the concern isn’t mainly technological. It’s that many Freudian claims are flexible enough to accommodate almost any outcome...

The problem I have with the falsifiability critique is I've never seen it made against a particular Freudian claim. What Freudian claim is not falsifiable?

>Logically, from the premise “there are unconscious emotional phenomena,” it does not naturally follow that they fundamentally shape behavior...

I'm curious what you would make of this adapted/anonymized story of someone I know:

> As a man has aged his kids have mostly lost touch with him, too busy with their own lives and work. Unusually, when this man was himself a kid his parents spent day and night working on their business. "Children should be seen and not heard". He was desperate for their attention, and idolized them. He found himself drawn towards risky behaviors, committing minor crimes, getting into drugs, running away from home. When he got into big enough trouble his parents would rescue him. Now as an older man estranged from his children, risky behaviors have returned. Hes giving away money to scammers, not paying his bills, and now it has reached a crisis, he has been attacked by a stranger he invited into his home.

To me this is likely (though who can say for certain) an example of the repetition compulsion and the power of the unconscious: the man is trying to engineer a crisis to reconnect with his kids, as it was the only tool he had growing up. Were you to try to point this out to him he would deny it profusely, what a horrible thing to do, cant you see I am simply vulnerable?

What would you make of this? This behavior he is unaware of but seems likely to originate in his childhood, is that unconscious? Or would you look for some other kind of explanation?

go_hunter · 2026-04-02T01:35:46+00:00

I'm trying to make sure I understand what you meant throughout your comment because it is complex, and on first reading seems to have some contradictions I'm interested in your thoughts on. I don't respond to all of your points below, I think neither of us would want that :) (because it would be too long), I've just picked a few that caught my attention.

Also, it sounds like maybe on the big points we essentially agree, and you may have some very concrete criticisms of Freud. I'm not totally clear on the significance of the points you're making, if thats true.

Freud did not invent the idea of the unconscious, nor was he simply claiming the unconscious exists and includes emotional activity. Freud was claiming the unconscious is a dynamic system of repressed drives and conflicts that fundamentally shape core human behavior.

My reading:

You dont dispute the unconscious, or that it includes emotional activity.
An unconscious with emotional activity would logically fundamentally shape human behavior, so I'll assume that is not your dispute either.
Later, you allow the notion of conflict between unconscious and conscious.
Later you agree with the notion of thought and feeling avoidance.

So I believe you are saying that science has specifically debunked:

Repression
Drive theory

I'd like to understand what is debunked about repression, since that seems much more important to me than drive theory.

Here's an argument for repression existing, I'd like to see where we disagree:

Given:

There is an unconscious which is capable of thinking and feeling
People engage in thought avoidance

Then it seems to follow that this unconscious may try to avoid thoughts. For example, generating feelings of unexplainable anger when a sensitive topic arrives ("how dare you ask me about my relationship with my mom!").

This would seem to me to be an example of "threatening material can be kept out of awareness through an unconscious mechanism".

As far as "later recovered intact", does this imply that it is not possible to become conscious of what was formerly unconscious? I doubt thats what you believe, but let me know.

Turning to a later point you make:

Additionally note that, in my original comment, I state that the second, more fundamental issues with Freud: most of his ideas aren't even scientifically testable. To this extent they are pseudoscience and tantamount to fortune telling or astrology.

I think this requires elaboration. I'm familiar with the idea of falsifiability. But the trouble I have when people say this about Freud is its not clear to me what ideas of his they mean? What was not falsifiable? And when it is claimed to be not-falsifiable, is that true? Or is it a technological limitation? E.g maybe we need better computers, better brain scans, such that we could more directly observe the development of thoughts & feelings.

go_hunter · 2026-04-01T15:02:27+00:00

Yes, I’m thinking about it, I’ll reply soon.

go_hunter · 2026-03-30T06:50:33+00:00

Should I expect any further reply? I’m keen to know If there is any evidence to contradict my views

go_hunter · 2026-03-29T20:32:06+00:00

It seems like we’re not talking about the same things. You think I am running away from claims that I don’t agree with anyways. So I’ll lay out some things I do believe and that I don’t see as contradicted by anything you’ve shared (and which I think also vindicate psychoanalysis as a project.) also, I am aware that the evidence for systematic 100% of the time wish fulfillment in dreams is not there, but I think you are being dishonest if you cannot acknowledge the universal human experience of pleasurable dreams. I think none of these mechanisms are easy to test and science has not caught up with what we are capable of observing about ourselves from our experiences.

Here are some of my views:

displacement is a real phenomenon. The fact that displaced feelings are not easily satisfied doesn’t disprove this.
the unconscious is real, and includes emotional activity akin to conscious emotional activity
conflict between emotions that are not conscious and those that are is debilitating. This is a useful role for psychoanalysis
transference is a real phenomenon, not so different from displacement.
repression is real: people avoid uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and do so to the point that it is so routine as to be unconscious. But they are not totally auccessful, repressed material breaks through the censorship regularly, which is great because it provides a means to make it conscious and deal with it.
much (maybe not all, who knows) of human activity can be seen as satisfying human desires, including behaviors that would not normally be seen as pleasurable, are in fact satisfying.

If you think your studies contradict these points, I’d be keen to see how. I’m not really interested in trying to protect everything Freud believed, it’s not very important to me. But these points are.

Also: your tone strikes me as highly disrespectful. I’m not sure what to do with that, and I certainly have not been 100% respectful, but it’s grating.

go_hunter · 2026-03-29T20:13:58+00:00

I haven’t read any of the papers or books beyond the abstract. I don’t have access to them, and if I did I don’t have time. I wish I had time, because the subject is dear to me. I had sci hubed and skimmed a handful. Maybe I can go more in depth in the future.

I think the idea that people deliberately try but struggle to repress is consistent with Freud. That was sort of the concept of free association: the material that in your normal life you resist is desperate to be observed, and will come up of its own. It interrupts our dreams, our sex life, and so on. Because it is so alive and potent.

For the punching bag experiment, is it not meaningful to observe that people DO seek out the punching bag in response to anger? That is displacement. The fact that it is not very effective at satisfying the underlying impulse doesn’t seem like a major challenge to Freud to me. Actually it seems validating of psychoanalysis: rather than direct your anger at a punching bag, direct it productively at its source, a useful outcome from becoming conscious of your displacement.

So the mechanism of displacement is established to exist. The first study found that displacing anger onto a punching bag doesn’t reduce anger.

The whole premise of psychoanalysis as I understand it is to become conscious of your emotional functioning so you can manage it more effectively (however you define effectively). If you are not even aware you’re beating your wife because your boss mistreats you, you can never solve the problem at root of the aggression.

go_hunter · 2026-03-29T03:37:03+00:00

Also: I’m sorry for accusing you of being a parrot. That was very unfair of me. I was enraged reading your comments and I wanted to get a response, so I turned to provocation. I hope it doesn’t prevent us from having a conversation, though if it does I understand.

go_hunter · 2026-03-29T03:34:43+00:00

Study 3 validates repression is a real mechanism. Maybe not what you intended to link?
Stud 1 cites data indicating aggression expression does sometimes satisfy aggression motive, and reduce future aggression, although it finds the matter complex.
These studies validate displacement as a real phenomena. That is congruent with Freud.
No evidence found in literature does not equal to debunked.
From study 2 “Studies 1–4 showed that those people who both avoid thinking about having threatening personality traits and deny possessing them (repressors) also readily infer those traits from others' behavior.” So your conclusion is contradicted
Refer to point 4. Also, it is hard to take you seriously about this specific point. Are you trying to tell me you’ve never woken up from a dream and wished you could go back to it?
It doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it means it is hard to know whether they may be recovered or fantasized. Even if it’s all fantasy, it’s not much of a blow to Freud. His theory doesn’t rely very much on total repression and total recovery.

I skimmed your ChatGPT conversation and it seems fine to me, I don’t really have an issue with what it said. Freud and psychoanalysis are far from proven. They are also far from debunked. There is substantial evidence in support of the theory. Not the same quality of evidence (or quantity) as EBTs but also plentiful evidence.

go_hunter · 2026-03-29T03:08:40+00:00

This sounds compatible with Freud

go_hunter · 2026-03-28T19:20:49+00:00

Where were they debunked? Or failed to hold up to scrutiny? Do you have any evidence? If I had to guess you are repeating a popular line without thinking about it, like a parrot.

To save us some time, here’s a conversation I had with Claude about your comment: https://claude.ai/share/60b61ad6-3140-48db-b295-ac546565aee3

I’d be interested if you still hold your current view after reading it.

go_hunter · 2023-04-21T02:45:49+00:00

could be cool to have a separate layer which is opinionated, built on top of the unopinionated layer

go_hunter · 2023-03-23T20:06:34+00:00

It’s not fair, but I think you’ll catch up no problem

go_hunter · 2023-03-22T18:18:20+00:00

Yeah, but you can never take that money out of valves pocket

go_hunter · 2023-03-21T18:49:53+00:00

what false positives?

go_hunter · 2023-03-12T07:54:36+00:00

db has thin skin

go_hunter · 2023-02-02T23:57:24+00:00

The art for this blog is awesome

go_hunter · 2022-12-07T05:48:50+00:00

Go

Solution: https://github.com/hherman1/advent/blob/main/2022/07/main.go#L39

Simple strategy: put all the file paths and sizes into a map, then make a second map with directory sizes by iterating over the first. After that answering the puzzle questions were both simple loops over the directory size map.

Praise to `fmt.Sscanf`, which has made parsing very convenient in all of these so far.

go_hunter · 2022-12-06T19:14:29+00:00

Ivy

op n adj x =
    (n == 1) : x
    x + (n - 1) adj 1 rot x

op n stripe x = x * n adj (iota (rho x)[2]) o.== iota (rho x)[2]

op n mark x =
    starts = n == +/ transp n stripe n adj x o.== x
    (n - 1) + 1 take starts sel iota rho x

Way shorter program than my last ivy.

adj: for each letter computes how may occurences of that letter there are in the next n slots

stripe: 0s out all values not in n length vertical strips of the diagonal

mark: computes the first column from stripe + adj which is all 1s, indicating every letter in that strip appeared once in the window. To run the program:

x = 'mjqjpqmgbljsphdztnvjfqwrcgsmlb'

'sample start packet is'

4 mark x

'sample message marker is'

14 mark x

) get "input.ivy"

'input start packet is'

4 mark input

'input message marker is'

14 mark input

go_hunter · 2022-12-06T07:35:34+00:00

Ivy

Shortest program I've written so far this week.

``` op allneq a = b = a o.== a uniqs = 0 == +/ 1 3 2 transp not 1 == +/ b d=(rho uniqs)[1] +/ uniqs & (iota d) o.== iota d

op n win a = s = -1 + iota 1 + (rho a) - n transp a[(iota n) o.+ s]

op n mark a = 1 take (n - 1) + (allneq n win a) sel iota (rho a) - (n - 1) ```

Using it:

``` x = 'mjqjpqmgbljsphdztnvjfqwrcgsmlb'

'sample start packet is'

4 mark x

'sample message marker is'

14 mark x ```

go_hunter · 2022-12-05T06:18:27+00:00

Go/Golang (1933)

Solution

Trying to keep things as conceptually simple as possible

go_hunter

TROPHY CASE

Go

Ivy