A laptop operates the same whether it is open on a desk in an office or on a bench in a park. But human brains aren’t like that—they are exquisitely sensitive to context. One of the most fertile and fruitful places to “think with” is nature. That’s because, over eons of evolution, our brains were tuned to the kind of sensory information available

We in the West are used to thinking of the mind and the body as separate. But a burgeoning field called “embodied cognition” is demonstrating that thinking is actually a full-body experience.