Don’t panic: ambiguity tolerance and the case for rewilding work

Theme: Imaginative Futures

Modern work demands clarity, control, and predictability - yet the world keeps serving up uncertainty.

This session explores feral cognition - the ancient, intuitive intelligence we evolved to navigate the unknown.

Drawing on neuroscience, somatics, and ecology, we’ll examine how ambiguity tolerance is suppressed in structured environments and how to reawaken it.

Expect ideas like “soma-signaling” (how your body interprets risk before your brain), and “the ecology of choice” (why forests thrive and factories fail in complexity).

This isn’t about tools or frameworks - it’s about reclaiming a way of thinking that’s more instinctive, more adaptive, and far more human. No roadmaps, just a guide for getting lost better.

Participant takeaways:

• Recognise how structure suppresses ambiguity tolerance and adaptive thinking.
• Understand how emotions precede thoughts in uncertain decision-making.
• Learn to attune to somatic signals before taking action.
• Explore ecological models for decentralised, resilient team cognition.
• Reclaim intuition as an evolved tool for modern complexity.

This session:

• Includes interaction
• Has a session number cap of 30