I wake up every day an imbecile excited by the chance of learning throughout the day and hopefully going to bed a smarter me. All in the hope of one day being smart enough to have an army of minions.
I am a life scientist, ethologist, experimental psychologist, and neurophysiologist by training—in that order with my Bachelor’s, Master’s, Ph.D., and Postdoctoral training, with much of my work focused on deciphering the “choreography” (aka., complex patterns in temporal structure) of physiological fluctuations associated with complex behaviors and functions. However, I have much broader interests in the philosophy of statistics, the process of scientific investigation, nonlinearity in micro and meta processes that have fueled my collaborations with philosophers of science, statistical physicists, experimental psychologists, and physiologists, among other musketeers. My recent motivation has been to advance non-representational accounts of perception and action using the metaphor of “cascades” borrowed from the literature on hydrodynamic cascades. For example, see my recent theory piece on how Turing’s cascade instability supports the coordination of the mind, brain, and behavior, in which I propose that Turing’s cascade instability blends the mind, brain, and behavior across space and time scales and provides an alternative to the dominant computer metaphor. Also see In search for an alternative to the computer metaphor of the mind and brain, an extended version of which will be soon coming out as a book. Much of my current work is focused on nonlinear analytical methods to study properties of physiological cascades.
IDENTITY
- Last name: Mangalam
- First name: Madhur
- Citizenship: India by birth
- Date of birth: 07/28/1989
- Place of birth: Ward no. 34, Fatima Hospital, Mahanagar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226006, India (C-sectioned by Dr. Mridula Kamboj)
- Gender: Male
- Eye color: Black or Brown, could not figure out yet
- Hair color: Mostly black but I’ve been shaving my head every second day since December 25th, 2010
- Height: 1.72 m (that’s 5′7.7165″ !every digit counts)
- Weight: 80.0 kg (that’s 176.37 lb in imperial units)
IF I WERE
a letter: M; a color: purple; a season: spring; an alchemist’s element: water; a metal: copper; a gas: helium; an object: bra; an animal: elephant; a tree: redwood; a flower: lotus; a fruit: watermelon; a taste: vanilla; a drink: iced hazelnut latte with real hazelnut, light ice, and whole milk; a dish: baingan bharta; a weapon: knife; a capital sin: pride; a feeling: amusement; a myth: the myth of Sisyphus; a god: Krishna; a mythological character: Ravana; a historical character: Buddha; an entrepreneur: Steven Wolfram; a drawing: the Vitruvian Man, of course; a word: any onomatopoeia; a cartoon character: Bob the builder; and all in all: eclectic.
HOBBIES
I spend too much time staring at digital displays ranging from my 5” smartphone to multiple 43” Ultra HD 4K Monitors; sketching (mostly to impress the ladies!); reading voraciously; walking around midtown, especially in the evenings; being a contrarian; arguing; slapstick comedy and pies in the face; embarrassing myself and friends in coffee shops and bars.
FAVORITE BOOKS
Freeman Dyson;
SOME PEOPLE I GREATLY ADMIRE
Benoit Mandelbrot, Himesh Reshammiya; Leonardo da Vinci; Margaret Thatcher; Mewa Singh; Nicholas Nassim Taleb; Richard Feynman; Ron Paul; Savya Sachi; Stephan Wolfram