I've actually pondered this question a lot, while driving, canoeing, and otherwise self-propelling through the world. The closest I can get to it is, there's an

I've actually pondered this question a lot, while driving, canoeing, and otherwise self-propelling through the world. The closest I can get to it is, there's an embodied intelligence that's activated in the open air in our natural habitat. Humans have remarkable powers of sensory perception outdoors, evolved over eons. Those skills can atrophy in modern built environments. We mostly use our big brains there, which aren't nearly as smart as all our intelligences put together. But those powers come alive again, when exposed directly to the elements they've evolved to understand: earth, wind, water, ice, mud, weather, plants, animals. It's true that we also gather lots of sensory input when, say, driving. It keeps us alive! But it's a recent adaptation, to highways, traffic, concrete, motors, metal boxes, compared to the elements we've evolved to perceive over many millenia.