To update our algorithms and enhance our brain functioning, there is one key thing we can do: Intentionally add experiences into our weekly routine that engage our sensory-motor systems in ways that are completely unfamiliar to us.

That is the essence of my interview with Jason Knight, director of Alderleaf Wilderness College. In this interview, we discuss:
-Jason’s journey to becoming a wilderness expert and his desire to connect people more deeply with nature and the types of thinking that come with those experiences;
-How people’s mindsets get disrupted when they experience a learning environment that challenges what they are used to;
-How our awareness expands as we spend time in nature: we begin to see allies, tools and individuated beings;
-A truly embodied perspective of empathy: working with natural systems requires us to move out of our self-referential networks and expand into neural territories that recognize how another living organism can perceive the world differently than us;
-High-level pattern recognition: how get the best possible solution and sustainable way of achieving a goal by expanding the space-time horizon and creating maps to see multiple systems working together across long periods of time