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This Quantum Physicist Says The Wave Function Isn't Real: Rob Spekkens
From Ancient Egypt to Leibniz... Brand‑new interview out with Robert Spekkens of the Perimeter Institute, one of the sharpest minds working on quantum foundations. In 2004, he constructed a classical toy theory where your maximum knowledge is always incomplete—and out popped the no-cloning theorem, teleportation, and interference effects Feynman deemed impossible to reproduce classically. Spekkens compares our situation to Egyptian hieroglyphs before Champollion: a category mistake where we treat quantum states as descriptions of reality when they actually describe knowledge of reality. If you’re interested in the topics above, you’ll love this podcast.
As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe
SUPPORT:
- Support me on Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe
- Support me on Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9
- Support me on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4
JOIN MY SUBSTACK (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e
TIMESTAMPS:
- 00:00:00 - Defining Quantum Innovation
- 00:06:40 - Realism vs. Empiricism
- 00:12:12 - Leibnizian Methodological Principle
- 00:23:40 - Causal Explanations of Correlations
- 00:30:24 - Epistemic Quantum States
- 00:41:00 - Foil Theory Methodology
- 00:54:00 - Causal Influence vs. Signaling
- 01:07:27 - Thermodynamics and Ignorance
- 01:15:00 - Conceptual Understanding in Physics
- 01:21:00 - Philosophy of Physics Utility
- 01:30:00 - Speckins' Toy Theory Origins
- 01:40:13 - Perimeter Institute's Ambitious DNA
- 01:52:00 - PBR Theorem Implications
- 02:05:40 - Ontic Separability Assumptions
- 02:17:40 - Hieroglyphs and Category Mistakes
- 02:29:00 - Revolutionizing Modern Physics
- 02:37:20 - Unscrambling Causation and Inference
LINKS MENTIONED:
Journals, papers, books:
- https://www.rwspekkens.com
- https://pirsa.org/speaker/Robert-Spekkens
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.01122
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0401052
- https://arxiv.org/abs/0706.2661
- https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0406166
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.11779
- https://amazon.com/dp/1108066488?tag=toe08-20
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/687269
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indiscernible/
- https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/specrel.pdf
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-holearg/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/hidden-variable-theory
- https://www.nature.com/articles/299802a0
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.01286
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02058098
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.07161
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/maxwells-equation
- https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/equivalence_principle/
- https://perimeterinstitute.ca/
- https://amazon.com/dp/9810241054?tag=toe08-20
- https://journals.aps.org/pr/pdf/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3328
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/rosetta-stone-hieroglyphs-champollion-decipherment-egypt-180980834/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932707000282
Videos:
- https://youtu.be/gEK4-XtMwro
- https://youtu.be/YWbjI-QsH2E
- https://youtu.be/fU1bs5o3nss
- https://youtu.be/NKOd8imBa2s
- https://youtu.be/6I2OhmVWLMs
- https://youtu.be/Tghl6aS5A3M
- https://youtu.be/HIoviZe14pY
- https://youtu.be/bprxrGaf0Os
- https://youtu.be/4MjNuJK5RzM
- https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s
- https://youtu.be/9AoRxtYZrZo
- https://youtu.be/uOKOodQXjhc
- https://youtu.be/3mhctWlXyV8
- https://youtu.be/gsSJPLX-BTA
- https://youtu.be/FFW14zSYiFY
- https://youtu.be/HhWWlJFwTqs
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
View all episodes
By Theories of Everything
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1313 ratings
From Ancient Egypt to Leibniz... Brand‑new interview out with Robert Spekkens of the Perimeter Institute, one of the sharpest minds working on quantum foundations. In 2004, he constructed a classical toy theory where your maximum knowledge is always incomplete—and out popped the no-cloning theorem, teleportation, and interference effects Feynman deemed impossible to reproduce classically. Spekkens compares our situation to Egyptian hieroglyphs before Champollion: a category mistake where we treat quantum states as descriptions of reality when they actually describe knowledge of reality. If you’re interested in the topics above, you’ll love this podcast.
As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe
SUPPORT:
- Support me on Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe
- Support me on Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9
- Support me on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4
JOIN MY SUBSTACK (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e
TIMESTAMPS:
- 00:00:00 - Defining Quantum Innovation
- 00:06:40 - Realism vs. Empiricism
- 00:12:12 - Leibnizian Methodological Principle
- 00:23:40 - Causal Explanations of Correlations
- 00:30:24 - Epistemic Quantum States
- 00:41:00 - Foil Theory Methodology
- 00:54:00 - Causal Influence vs. Signaling
- 01:07:27 - Thermodynamics and Ignorance
- 01:15:00 - Conceptual Understanding in Physics
- 01:21:00 - Philosophy of Physics Utility
- 01:30:00 - Speckins' Toy Theory Origins
- 01:40:13 - Perimeter Institute's Ambitious DNA
- 01:52:00 - PBR Theorem Implications
- 02:05:40 - Ontic Separability Assumptions
- 02:17:40 - Hieroglyphs and Category Mistakes
- 02:29:00 - Revolutionizing Modern Physics
- 02:37:20 - Unscrambling Causation and Inference
LINKS MENTIONED:
Journals, papers, books:
- https://www.rwspekkens.com
- https://pirsa.org/speaker/Robert-Spekkens
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.01122
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0401052
- https://arxiv.org/abs/0706.2661
- https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0406166
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.11779
- https://amazon.com/dp/1108066488?tag=toe08-20
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/687269
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-indiscernible/
- https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/specrel.pdf
- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-holearg/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/hidden-variable-theory
- https://www.nature.com/articles/299802a0
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.01286
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02058098
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.07161
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/maxwells-equation
- https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/equivalence_principle/
- https://perimeterinstitute.ca/
- https://amazon.com/dp/9810241054?tag=toe08-20
- https://journals.aps.org/pr/pdf/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777
- https://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3328
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/rosetta-stone-hieroglyphs-champollion-decipherment-egypt-180980834/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932707000282
Videos:
- https://youtu.be/gEK4-XtMwro
- https://youtu.be/YWbjI-QsH2E
- https://youtu.be/fU1bs5o3nss
- https://youtu.be/NKOd8imBa2s
- https://youtu.be/6I2OhmVWLMs
- https://youtu.be/Tghl6aS5A3M
- https://youtu.be/HIoviZe14pY
- https://youtu.be/bprxrGaf0Os
- https://youtu.be/4MjNuJK5RzM
- https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s
- https://youtu.be/9AoRxtYZrZo
- https://youtu.be/uOKOodQXjhc
- https://youtu.be/3mhctWlXyV8
- https://youtu.be/gsSJPLX-BTA
- https://youtu.be/FFW14zSYiFY
- https://youtu.be/HhWWlJFwTqs
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