Jeffrey M Epstein
@jeffreymepstein.bsky.social
Quantum information, computation, and foundations. Increasingly interested in logic and the philosophies of physics, language, and mind.
📍 San Francisco
jeffreymepstein.github.io/
📍 San Francisco
jeffreymepstein.github.io/
Pinned
I was very kindly offered a chance to discuss my Frauchiger-Renner paper on the Quantum Frontiers blog! I attempt to situate the work, focusing on the philosophical motivations/commitments implicit in Wigner's Friend and the FR paradox. Cameo by another, unrelated obsession of mine at the end!
Reposted by Jeffrey M Epstein
The idea of QFT was already around, of course, but Dirac and others had thought of the electron field ψ as a "relativistic wave function," not as a field to be quantized. It was Pauli & Weisskopf who set things straight once and for all.
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
Über die Quantisierung der skalaren relativistischen Wellengleichung
In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die konsequente Anwendung des Heisenberg-Pauli’schen Formalismus der Quantisierung der Wellenfelder auf die skalare relativistische Wellengleiehung für Mater...
link.springer.com
November 30, 2025 at 9:01 PM
The idea of QFT was already around, of course, but Dirac and others had thought of the electron field ψ as a "relativistic wave function," not as a field to be quantized. It was Pauli & Weisskopf who set things straight once and for all.
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...
Definitely going to be reusing his characterization of the potential importance of the linguistic model: "We are not dealing with a bizarre piece of French nonsense -- at least not necessarily."
I bought Pettit's The Concept of Structuralism at a used book store over the weekend because I liked how it looked and also the idea of knowing what structuralism is. Anyway I started reading it last night and might actually be on the way to knowing what people mean when they say "structuralist".
November 30, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Definitely going to be reusing his characterization of the potential importance of the linguistic model: "We are not dealing with a bizarre piece of French nonsense -- at least not necessarily."
There's a pile of Bay Times magazines in this cafe with a cover story about Nancy Pelosi with the subtitle "Speaking truth to power for 4 decades" and not to nitpick but I don't know if that phrase is really meant to be used about someone who's spent 10% of her life as speaker of the house.
November 30, 2025 at 6:17 PM
There's a pile of Bay Times magazines in this cafe with a cover story about Nancy Pelosi with the subtitle "Speaking truth to power for 4 decades" and not to nitpick but I don't know if that phrase is really meant to be used about someone who's spent 10% of her life as speaker of the house.
I’m very lucky to have a best friend whose technical expertise I trust more than anything to reassure me every time I get scared that some ai booster has made a point I don’t know enough to refute myself.
November 29, 2025 at 9:49 PM
I’m very lucky to have a best friend whose technical expertise I trust more than anything to reassure me every time I get scared that some ai booster has made a point I don’t know enough to refute myself.
The "what if three loaves worth of stuffing isn't enough" panic is setting in
November 26, 2025 at 9:41 PM
The "what if three loaves worth of stuffing isn't enough" panic is setting in
Not sure what I think about the notion of a "flourishing index", but at least some interesting pictures and historical tidbits in here
November 26, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Not sure what I think about the notion of a "flourishing index", but at least some interesting pictures and historical tidbits in here
When I'm mean to you it's because I'm doing science discourse and also because you dress weird
(article looks very interesting)
(article looks very interesting)
Ad Hominem Arguments in Scientific Discourses – Rational Heuristic or Dangerous Immunisation Strategy? - PhilSci-Archive
philsci-archive.pitt.edu
November 26, 2025 at 4:47 PM
When I'm mean to you it's because I'm doing science discourse and also because you dress weird
(article looks very interesting)
(article looks very interesting)
Reposted by Jeffrey M Epstein
this car kind of looks like it has a face. Scientists say it’s time to consider whether it’s smiling at me.
November 26, 2025 at 1:24 AM
this car kind of looks like it has a face. Scientists say it’s time to consider whether it’s smiling at me.
I bought Pettit's The Concept of Structuralism at a used book store over the weekend because I liked how it looked and also the idea of knowing what structuralism is. Anyway I started reading it last night and might actually be on the way to knowing what people mean when they say "structuralist".
November 25, 2025 at 6:39 PM
I bought Pettit's The Concept of Structuralism at a used book store over the weekend because I liked how it looked and also the idea of knowing what structuralism is. Anyway I started reading it last night and might actually be on the way to knowing what people mean when they say "structuralist".
Tractatus Quanticum - PhilSci-Archive
philsci-archive.pitt.edu
November 25, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by Jeffrey M Epstein
I don't know about you but the way my brain works is by analyzing the contents of the entire internet to make an educated guess about what word I should use next.
November 25, 2025 at 2:05 PM
I don't know about you but the way my brain works is by analyzing the contents of the entire internet to make an educated guess about what word I should use next.
Reposted by Jeffrey M Epstein
my fellow nerds may appreciate this space i found on wikipedia (intersection of all these forever) that is one of the simplest examples of a compact connected metric space that is not a union of two proper closed connected metric spaces.
November 22, 2025 at 3:50 AM
my fellow nerds may appreciate this space i found on wikipedia (intersection of all these forever) that is one of the simplest examples of a compact connected metric space that is not a union of two proper closed connected metric spaces.
A month later I'm pretty certain this is true. Also gets at an important point, which is that I should be allowed to just sit around all day making absurd pronouncements about quantum mechanics and be paid a billion dollars a year to do it. Is that so much to ask?
I think this might be workable: the measurement problem is an artifact of physicists rediscovering the problems of personal identity in the context of quantum mechanics and assuming that these problems have been solved already by the philosophers in the classical setting.
November 21, 2025 at 5:45 PM
A month later I'm pretty certain this is true. Also gets at an important point, which is that I should be allowed to just sit around all day making absurd pronouncements about quantum mechanics and be paid a billion dollars a year to do it. Is that so much to ask?
So a couple small quibbles here.
November 19, 2025 at 12:47 AM
So a couple small quibbles here.
Someone in a meeting just said that we're going to "implement the scientific method". Should I unmute and tell them that isn't a real thing?
November 14, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Someone in a meeting just said that we're going to "implement the scientific method". Should I unmute and tell them that isn't a real thing?
Calling yourself a "worker" in the context of being angry at the system: yes, very good and cool, we love class consciousness
Calling yourself a "worker" in the context of talking about your productivity strategies: no, cringe and embarrassing, have some self respect
Calling yourself a "worker" in the context of talking about your productivity strategies: no, cringe and embarrassing, have some self respect
November 13, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Calling yourself a "worker" in the context of being angry at the system: yes, very good and cool, we love class consciousness
Calling yourself a "worker" in the context of talking about your productivity strategies: no, cringe and embarrassing, have some self respect
Calling yourself a "worker" in the context of talking about your productivity strategies: no, cringe and embarrassing, have some self respect
Woman sitting across from me on the plane is reviewing a paper and just said to her husband “basically I think the problem with describing her results is that they’re meaningless”.
November 6, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Woman sitting across from me on the plane is reviewing a paper and just said to her husband “basically I think the problem with describing her results is that they’re meaningless”.
There's a mosquito in my apartment in san francisco??
November 6, 2025 at 5:16 AM
There's a mosquito in my apartment in san francisco??
Rorty in “Texts and Lumps”: “our ideal of perfect knowledge is the sympathetic knowledge we occasionally have of the state of mind of another person […] Realistic interpretations of natural science are thus hopeless attempts to make physical science initiate the Geisteswissenschaften.” (!!!)
November 1, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Rorty in “Texts and Lumps”: “our ideal of perfect knowledge is the sympathetic knowledge we occasionally have of the state of mind of another person […] Realistic interpretations of natural science are thus hopeless attempts to make physical science initiate the Geisteswissenschaften.” (!!!)
Hard to understand these people. Being mayor sounds like a lot of work and kind of boring, if I were a billionaire I’d just go to the beach or something.
Bloomberg has dropped $5 million against Zohran in these last days of the race, making him the single largest donor. Personally I wish he'd just settle for having successfully bought a 3rd term and do something else with his money www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...
November 1, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Hard to understand these people. Being mayor sounds like a lot of work and kind of boring, if I were a billionaire I’d just go to the beach or something.
Reposted by Jeffrey M Epstein
Things I’ve found in children’s Halloween candy
October 31, 2023 at 9:41 PM
Things I’ve found in children’s Halloween candy
I get that I'm way too thin-skinned about this stuff, and that I should be used to seeing this by now, and that I'm a fragile little snowflake with way too much self-regard, and all that, but as someone who has spent most of my life just wanting to be given space to think, this is infuriating.
October 31, 2025 at 10:12 PM
I get that I'm way too thin-skinned about this stuff, and that I should be used to seeing this by now, and that I'm a fragile little snowflake with way too much self-regard, and all that, but as someone who has spent most of my life just wanting to be given space to think, this is infuriating.
Reposted by Jeffrey M Epstein
October 30, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Every time I catch myself saying that something is "subtle" I stop and ask myself "is it subtle or do I just not understand it" and it's always the latter.
October 30, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Every time I catch myself saying that something is "subtle" I stop and ask myself "is it subtle or do I just not understand it" and it's always the latter.