“Tall Poppies Talk,” a springboard into an unfamiliar world

Sam Edmonds 

I’m always excited when I receive an invitation to a „Tall Poppies Talk“ in Berlin. 

Perhaps it’s because each Australian Salon feels like a homecoming. I enjoy seeing old friends, meeting friendly new faces and hearing unfamiliar voices swapping stories in familiar accents.

But there’s more to it than that. Tall Poppies is the springboard from which I take my quarterly plunge into the unfamiliar world of the arts and classical music. The guest speakers show me a side of Australia that I personally had little exposure to as a kid growing up in outback Queensland.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself in the audience of the first Tall Poppies Talk of 2020 listening to „Stairway to Heaven“ backwards?

The man behind the madness was Matthew Larkum, an Australian neuroscientist who runs a cutting-edge research lab at Humboldt University. He called on Led Zeppelin’s music to help explain how the brain works. (But only after he demonstrated that he too is a sickeningly talented violinist.) 

To paraphrase Matthew rather recklessly, consider that the brain is essentially a type of computer. And like all computer systems, it processes two types of information: external and internal. 

External information is generated when we see, hear, smell and feel. Internal information is what we think we know about the world, or what we expect. The brain is constantly working to reconcile these two types of information.

It’s not as straightforward as you might think. For example, if you listen to „Stairway to Heaven“ backwards without any further information, you will probably only hear some strange garbled sounds. But if someone tells you those garbles are actually satanic verses and shows you a transcript of the supposed lyrics, you may well find yourself dancing with the devil!

But enough with the party tricks. Matthew went on to explain that reconciliation is not a single process performed by „the brain“ as a whole. Rather, it takes place right down at the single cell level. 

This means that by manipulating the inputs or sensitivity of an individual neuron’s internal/external receptors, you can change the signals that neuron generates in response. This could have big implications for the treatment of neuro-degenerative diseases and other disorders.

Many thanks to Matthew for being so generous with his time after the formal discussion ended and deteriorated into a more light-hearted Q&A about mind control, alternative facts, and why J.S. Bach is still making even the youngest children cry, 270 years after his death. (See? I am learning!)

A big thank you also to our hosts, David & Martin, for allowing a bunch of strangers into their home and providing yet another buffet to die for. (Fortunately the coronavirus preppers and hoarders hadn’t made it to Italian specialty store!)

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Sam Edmonds grew up in Mount Isa and studied journalism and business in Brisbane. He moved to Germany in 2005 to work as a reporter and somehow ended up becoming a procurement risk manager in the financial industry