Phase 2.2 — Strongest Objections & Response Strategies

Status: Not started — Target: Weeks 11–13

Objective

Identify and develop the strongest version of each major objection, written as though preparing to present it oneself. The goal is not to neutralize objections in advance but to demonstrate that the project has reckoned with them honestly.

Objection 1: From Clinical Psychoanalysis

“The unconscious is encountered in the transference — in the living relationship between analyst and analysand, where desire, resistance, and repetition play out in real time. It is not a formal system that can be abstracted from the clinical setting. Mapping it onto a machine does not extend psychoanalysis; it evacuates everything that matters about it.”

Strongest form of the objection:

Response strategy:

What this objection gets right:

What it misses:

Objection 2: From Computer Science

“This is unfalsifiable humanities projection onto a system we can already explain with linear algebra and probability theory. What specific, novel prediction does this framework generate that existing interpretability methods do not? What explanatory or predictive power does it add?”

Strongest form of the objection:

Response strategy:

What this objection gets right:

What it misses:

Objection 3: From Philosophy of Mind

“Structural isomorphism does not entail process identity. A thermostat and a human body both have feedback loops, but the thermostat doesn’t perform homeostasis in any interesting sense. Why should structural parallels between LLMs and the unconscious be anything more than coincidental isomorphism?”

Strongest form of the objection:

Response strategy:

What this objection gets right:

What it misses:

Objection 4: From Linguistics

“Jakobson’s two axes are descriptive categories for natural language, not universal computational principles. The metaphor/metonymy distinction is contested even within linguistics. The theoretical foundation is shaky.”

Strongest form of the objection:

Response strategy:

What this objection gets right:

What it misses:

Summary: How the Project Addresses Each Objection