Quantum tunneling and exceptional human capacities: Illustrating different skepticisms in physics and psychology

Abstract

Quantum tunneling is a phenomenon where a particle appears on the other side of an energy barrier that it does not have enough energy to pass through, according to classical physics. This notion, first proposed by a German physicist in 1927, runs improbably counter to common sense and to rules thought for hundreds of years to govern physics. Acceptance of this and other quantum phenomena has required the reconceptualization of subatomic particles from solid bits of matter to probability clouds that extend infinitely in every direction. As such, quantum physics has required a skepticism driven by the need for sound evidence, rather than based on whether a given idea conformed to culturally common notions of reality. This form of well-tempered skepticism would serve the project of building a psychology of the whole person, and of all persons, in place of versions that reject phenomena based on cultural notions of what is or is not plausible, even in the face of substantive preliminary evidence. Such a skepticism is counterproductive in a way that dismissal of a patient's unexpected healing response could negatively impact the body's self-healing capacities.