Three Ghostbusters: Wittgenstein, Tesla and James on the Death of Dualism. How energy fractals reunite mind and body - and finally make learning stick.
The Ghost in the Machine - That Still Haunts all Training and Development Worldwide
In the shadows of every leadership seminar, every coaching session, every training workshop… there lingers a ghost.
It’s not poor facilitation, boring slides, or lack of follow-up (though those don’t help).
It’s Cartesian dualism — the ancient belief that mind and body are separate substances, and that changing behaviour is as simple as “changing your thinking.”
This ghost whispers:
“Insight is enough.” “Just raise awareness.” “A good model will shift behaviour.”
But it won’t. It never has. And never will.
This ghost walks through the corridors of business schools, universities, academia, and corporate L and D departments. Powerful and relentless. Doing the bidding of Descartes. Keeping mind and body far apart.
That’s why, at Quanta, we build Energy Fractals — recursive, embodied actions that rewire not just minds, but nervous systems. The evolutionary bridge that brings the mind and body together.
To help explain, we’ve called in three very different thinkers — our Ghostbusters of Dualism:
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Philosopher of Practice
Wittgenstein knew that language without practice is meaningless — and that change doesn’t come from better explanations, but from changing the “language-games” of life.
“To teach a new way of thinking, do not speak — act. Embed the word in the practice, and let the practice shape the world.” — Wittgenstein
In Quanta terms, this is the fractal — a repeated action that carries meaning through use, not concept.
“You cannot banish the ghost of Descartes with more talk of minds. But teach the body a pattern, and the language will follow.”
His solution? Don’t describe behaviour. Practice it. Repeat it. Let it rewire your grammar of meaning.
Nikola Tesla: The Engineer of Living Systems
Tesla saw the world as frequency, vibration, and energy — not concept.
To him, training without embodiment is like a motor without current.
“You cannot power a machine with theory. You must move electrons.”
His view of the energy fractal is simple:
“The energy fractal is the true dynamo of human change — a looped circuit, where intention becomes electricity, and electricity becomes evolution.”
Tesla reminds us that ideas without embodiment are dead circuits. The body must conduct the current.
“You wish to rewire a leader? Then give them a pattern that hums, repeats, and lights the nervous system with its own electricity.”
William James: The Psychologist of Habit
James believed that habit is the essence of character — and that thinking changes only through the plasticity of repeated action.
He saw the body as a site of learning. Without movement, belief is vapour.
“Fractals are the modern form of habit — not rigid, but recursive. Not doctrine, but discipline.”
His take on the fractal?
“You do not believe what you think — you believe what you repeat.”
That’s why Quanta doesn’t teach transformation — we install it, one looped, emotionally-charged, biological action at a time.
“To change a mind, build a groove. To change a system, pattern the grooves. That is what a fractal does: it teaches the will through the hand.”
The Energy Fractal: Ghostbuster, Circuit Builder, Groove Maker
Quanta’s Energy Fractal is more than a behavioural trick. It is:
A practice (Wittgenstein)
A circuit (Tesla)
A groove (James)
It converts thought into action, action into biology, and biology into emergent intelligence.
That’s how you banish the ghost of Descartes. Not with better thinking — but with recursion, emotion, and embodiment.
Final Thought: From Ghost to Groove
“The mind is what the body dreams it is. The body is what the mind forgets it needs. Only when the two dance in fractal rhythm do we become truly improbable — and therefore, truly alive.” — Douglas Adams (if he consulted for Quanta)
