"Try your remote with cardboard, paper, glas of water, ... ... between the remote and your TV set. Will it work?" Most likely it will work, IR receivers in TVs are extremely sensitive. And the slightest bit of light that is reflected off of the sheets of paper and such will cause the tv to pick up the signal. If you were able to full enclose it with those materials you might see different results.
Considering he said IR "lights", I assume he is referring to near-IR. Thermal IR behaves quite a lot differently than near-IR, because the wavelength is much longer.
"You picture the heat sources with a IR camera, not the visible things, it has nothing to do with photons." Excuse me? It has all to do with photons.