Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 3:33 - Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aaronson
• 4:51 - See the entry for “Seasonal Affective Disorder” from John Hopkins Medicine
• 6:38 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 25 - “Living the Dream” from 2022
• 8:14 - See the “Hygiene hypothesis” Wikipedia entry
• 13:42 - See ideas related to the pace of major cultural and technological shifts popularized in Future Shock by Alvin Toffler (1970)
• 15:50 - See “Calorie-free sweeteners can disrupt the brain’s appetite signals” from USC’s Keck School of Medicine (2025)
• 22:30 - See “The semi-satisfied life” from Aeon about Arthur Schopenhauer’s thoughts on happiness
• 24:59 - Watch the classic Simpson’s clip “You could flash fry a buffalo in 40 seconds”
• 29:30 - See the “Habituation” Wikipedia entry
• 28:40 - See “AI and the Human Condition” from the Stratechery Substack, which contains the Louis C.K. clip “Everything is Amazing…and Nobody is Happy”

This episode was recorded in September February 2026

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 4:37 - See more on Daniel Kahneman, “The Father of Behavioral Science,” at The Decision Lab
• 6:31 - Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
• 6:44 - In his book, The Happiness Hypothesis, psychologist Jonathan Haidt characterizes the human mind as a partnership between separate but connected entities using the metaphor of the rider and the elephant - the rider represents all that is conscious and is the director of actions and executor of thought and long term goals, while the elephant represents all that is automatic, and often acts independently of conscious thought.
• 8:10 - Listen to Beautiful Illusions Episode 12 - A New Enlightenment: The Age of Cognitivism from March, 2021
• 9:19 - Philosophize This!
• 17:19 - The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
• 21:43 - Listen to Mindscape Episode 340 - Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters
• 28:40 - See “Each Shuffle of a Deck of Cards is Probably Unique in History”

This episode was recorded in January 2026

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episode

Selected References:

• 8:56 - At 4,975 feet above sea level Black Mesa is the highest point in Oklahoma
• 17:00 - See the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list (Rolling Stone, 2023)
• 18:58 - Listen to “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam (YouTube)
• 20:38 - See the Hollow Knight: Silksong Wikipedia entry and read “Silksong Broke Me - Then It Got Good” (Polygon, 2025)
• 32:26 - See “The Dopamine Cycle: Impacts of Excessive Screen Time” (The Jacob’s Ladder Group, 2025)
• 37:08 - The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
• 44:40 - Watch bats swarming out of a cave entrance at Carlsbad Caverns (YouTube)
• 49:00 - The Arthur Schopenhauer quote “we do not feel the health of our entire body but only the small place where the shoe pinches” via the article “The Semi-Satisfied Life” (Aeon Magazine)
• 49:50 - Read “How do our memories differ from our experiences?” for more on the peak-end rule and the remembering self versus the experiencing self (The Decision Lab)

This episode was recorded in September 2025

The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti