reality

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80% of adults are overly optimistic about life—where does that cognitive bias come from?

Why does America confuse fantasy for reality, in pop culture and in politics? Kurt Andersen can pinpoint the moment it happened.

Your future happiness and success will depend on the double-edged sword of embracing new technology to stay connected, and being smart enough to unplug at the right time.

Reality is whatever your body believes. Virtual reality knows how to hack that.

Is our existence base reality—or are we pawns in a matrix? Cognitive scientist Joscha Bach explains how we might be able to tell.

Our brains didn’t evolve to see the world accurately, we only perceive what is useful and apply meaning to it. Neuroscientist Beau Lotto shows us how the sausage of reality is made.

Will we ever have a Theory of Everything? Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss isn’t sure that’s the right question to be asking.

Everybody wants to be happy, right? Who wouldn’t try to get as many pleasurable experiences as they could? Well, if this philosopher is right. You wouldn’t. 

Few see how strongly science’s preferred languages shape and limit the thinking of many experts. 

American painter David Salle explains that to observe and appreciate art better, we need to refresh a basic skill we’ve all left in the dust: how to see.

“My Experience is What I Agree to Pay Attention to,” said psychologist William James. And therein lies the problem and danger of advertising: we don’t always agree or choose to pay attention, but it shapes our life experience irrevocably.

Think happy, be happy? Maybe not. Harvard psychologist Susan David examines the backlash effect of forced positivity in our lives.