Re:Egoless Mathematics in the AI Era
by sam_lowry_ on Monday November 02, 2026 @02:21PM
(#50342172)
AI inflicted the 4th narcisstic wound on humanity, the other three being Copernican, Darwinian and Freudian, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_injury for the background.
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I think it's the third, because ironically the Freudian one seems to be invented by Freud out of a narcissistic desire to compare the impact of his work to Copernicus and Darwin.
Don't underestimate the impact Freud had.. Even though he is now often seen as a pseudo-scientic Quacksalber, he opened up a world with psychoanalysis. He was an immense popularizer of clinical psychology, the subconscious mind (!) and mental illnesses.
He really showed that we humans are driven be desires more than anything else.
The lumping is problematic because it's putting him on a level with the others who (a) discovered; things that were (b) true. The fact that he popularized concepts that had been thoroughly investigated by others (e.g. Nietzsche) with accounts were leaps and bounds ahead of the evidence does not put him at the same tier of the pantheon as those others.
Eat more Freud, it makes you Jung.
You are right about Freud. Still, we now know that our mind has surprisingly little control of our behavior. And I think that counts as fourth narcissistic injury. There doesn‘t need to be one “genius“ to which we associate such an insight.
The natural sciences as they always do keep removing the gaps where magic or supernatural hides in. Many people sre unable to swuare with the fact that human brains are physical systems.