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Show notes
One of the major obstacles to understanding quantum mechanics is the difficulty we have in simply accepting what the theory itself is telling us. The problem is that we know what the everyday world looks like -- stuff, arranged in space, evolving through time. So we can't resist the temptation to impose that picture on the quantum description, even if it's not actually there. In this solo episode I talk about what it means to take quantum mechanics at face value, and the difficult work involved in understanding how the everyday world of our experience fits into the picture. Blog post with transcript: [">https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/05/25/355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball/">]( ) _Support Mindscape on [https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll"]( Patreon._ Here is the survey on physicists' opinions about unsettled big-picture questions: - Afshordi, Halper, Rini, and Schirber, "[Big">https://inspirehep.net/literature/3154769">Big]( https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11058">,]( https://inspirehep.net/literature/1852066">Reality](<a href=) as a Vector in Hilbert Space." If you want further papers, look at the papers cited in this one.