Tversky, Kahneman, Freud, the Unconscious, and T. Colin Campbell

What Kahneman and Tversky (The Undoing Project, Thinking Fast and Slow) have essentially done is to statistically prove the essence of Freud's work, which is that we are primarily creatures of instinct not reason. Freud basically was saying the renaissance message of self determination based on reasoning gives a partially (or mostly) wrong message. Instinctual (unconscious) processes are fooled by a great variety of things. But not always! They are essentially designed by the creator of biology (whoever/whatever that is) to keep us from being killed. And they continue to function on that level, so we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The unconscious runs the autonomic systems, it keep the heart beating. It causes us to leap out of the way of an oncoming bus...without ever having a conscious thought about it in that moment.

Instinctual responses are challenged greatly under post civilization conditions, but weren't so much in hunter gatherer conditions where they were wholly appropriate. It's how today we can know the cause of health and still be the sickest ever (The Pleasure Trap). It's how easily science can be corrupted with bias without the authors of that corruption even being consciously aware of it. It's why attitudes change so gradually. It's why truth is first ridiculed, then violently opposed, then finally accepted as self-evident.

Recognition that the unconscious is a real thing, that it actually does exist, means we cannot really even know in real time the exact forces driving our reactions, decisions, and behaviors. We can however be open to the idea that what we think we know may well be partly or wholly false. And then entertain a field of other probabilities. Knowing that we have an unconscious, and that it is responsible for much or most of what we think and do, can broaden our horizons and make us more effective.

The problem is we really have no reliable access to the unconscious. if we did there would be no unconscious, the fervent unconscious wish of us humans in general. We want omniscience! But the unconscious cannot be legislated out of existence. We keep thinking it can (and that itself is action based on unconscious impulses). The best we can do is to accept it, and remain open to revisions in our conscious ideas and world view.

The idea that Freud's work has been "overturned" is based on two things primarily: a misunderstanding or ignorance of what he was really getting at, or an unconscious wish to deny the significance of the fact we are "driven" mostly by instinct not reason.

BTW I'm reading Colin Campbell's latest (and likely last) book "The Future of Nutrition". It's a good read, still working on it, it may be his greatest work.