June 4, 2015

June 4, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

This is the second part of my response to Radical Behaviorism and Buddhism: Complementarities and Conflicts” by Diller and Lattal (2008).  Only if one wishes to compare apples and oranges does it make sense (or no sense at all) to imagine that the “simplification of theoretical language to a few functional terms (e.g. reinforcer)”in behaviorism, is similar to “Zen Buddhism’s focus on the removal of abstract thinking by the individual.”  Surely, one has nothing to do with other,, but if one looks into that one finds something unexpected: “removal of abstract thinking” dumbs us down,, but simplification of theoretical  language to a few functions” makes us smart if it leads to the discovery of Sound  Verbal Behavior (SVB).  Behaviorists are as stuck with Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB )  as everyone else. With NVB we are merely pretending to talk. Buddhists are against talking and their attitude makes them into phony talkers.

A good example is the Dalai Lama. He is faking to have a conversation. His dismissal of other people their way of talking is best captured by the pot which blames the kettle that he is black.  If Buddhists and behaviorists would look into how, the behavior of the speaker and the listener is caused by the environment,, they would end up having SVB. However, I claim that neither Buddhists nor behaviorist s do this – while they speak.  They theorize, but in real conversation, that is, in SVB, we stop hypothesizing. 

Whether we interact with our environment and have SVB and take turns being a speaker and a listener,, while we as speakers are always our own listener, is determined by whether we are stimulated to listen to ourselves while we speak. The idea that we supposedly can listen to each other by not listening to ourselves, or, for that matter, that we talk at each other without actually also talking at ourselves,, is part of the dissociative illusion created and maintained by NVB.  If we talk at each other, we are not in contact with each other,. If we talk at ourselves we are not in contact with ourselves either.

Obviously, we cannot be in contact with others (the environment outside of our skin) if we are not in contact with our selves (the environment inside of our skin).  Our contact with others depends on our contact with ourselves and therefore how we talk with others is a function of how we talk with ourselves. And, of course, how we talk with ourselves is a function of how others have talked with us,, but this conditioning of the environment within our own skin will determine how we interact or fail to interact with the environment outside of our skin. Only in SVB can we successfully interact with  the environments on both sides of our skin. It is impossible to only interact successfully with the environment outside of our skin and it is equally impossible to only interact successfully with the environment that is within our own skin. In both cases we end up having NVB.  Only in SVB do we talk in such a fashion that the environment on both sides of the skin is perceived as one environment. 

In NVB we are either too outward or too inward oriented and both involve experiences of negative emotions. “Discussions of the presumed similarities” between Buddhism and behaviorism don’t help.The observation that “In Buddhism, the individual is connected with his or her environment” and “in radical behaviorism, the organism is interactive with its environment” didn’t lead to “any careful examination” on either the behaviorist’s or the Buddhist’s side. Moreover, it didn’t bring us any closer to the discovery of SVB. 

If someone would ask me: who is closer to SVB, the Buddhists or the behaviorist? I would answer without a moment of hesitation: behaviorists. The Buddhists have absolutely no clue about how behavior actually works. Moreover,, and this is what I am looking at,, Buddhists are worse talkers than behaviorists. 

Another half-baked behaviorist (Baum, 1995) wanted to “blend behavioral and Eastern philosophies in palatable way.” This guru with his insatiable need of disciples even suggested that it would be “respectable and nice” for behaviorists to “improve their public image” by blending it with New Age”. Nothing of the kind happened. It shows Baum got carried away by his esoteric, molar perspective, which doesn’t stimulate or enhance any conversation. Skinner would turn in his grave to let "a psychic" know his displeasure. 

I find it very curious that the authors of this paper use the words “through an experimental analysis, Skinner believed it was possible to identify underlying principles of behavior that transcends species” (underlining added) . What are they talking about? Oh,, that’s right,, they are only writing. Skinner didn’t just “believe it was possible “to identify these underlying principles,, he actually found and documented them and his experiments provided empirical evidence for his findings. Why write ""once prediction and control  are achieved, relevant technologies may be employed to change behavior and it becomes possible to effect socially desirable change, perhaps ultimately improving the human condition?" (underlining added)  There is no question about it that prediction and control will lead to improving the human condition, so why use the word “perhaps? 

Presumably behaviorists can learn something from Buddhists,, but  I don’t think so. If learning occurs, Buddhists have to learn from behaviorists and not the other way around. It isn’t happening that behaviorists understand, let alone accept, that Buddhism is basically a science of enlightenment.”   Such prediction is pure fantasy.

Are behaviorists enhanced by replacing the three-term contingency with nebulous concepts such as “emptiness” or “clearing away the mist of ignorance to open the way to enlightenment?”   They may “seek to understand the nature of the physical world” but their belief will take them to Dalai La LaLand. At the end of the day it is still the  the inner behavior-causing agent, who, loaded with karma, seeks to “escape from the suffering inherent in the world”  and tries to achieve, or realize a higher sense of self, by means of rule-governed behavior , by following the Eight-fold Path to enlightenment . What a joke!

I can’t believe that the Behavior Analyst published this nonsense. The “interdependence of all things” is just a mystical version of the naturalist view that there is only one reality. It requires another way of talking, which is easily obfuscated and forgotten about by bombastic writings such as these.  I am offended, (as a self-taught behaviorist,) that a peer-reviewed journal like the Behavior Analyst accepts papers in which authors write “it is believed that through the cultivation of certain behaviors (as described by the Eightfold Path) it is possible to escape from the suffering of this world, and to achieve nirvana (i.e. freedom from suffering and extinction of the individual being).  Is it a need for social acceptance that behaviorists now practice respect for and are willing to promote religious dogma, or is it because they fail again and again to articulate while talking the importance of the science of human behavior that behaviorists try to  “become enlightened”, so that “their attachments to the world ceases and craving and suffering also end (Mitchell, 2002)?  Frankly, I think it is because they just talk out of their ass. More precisely, it is because behaviorists,, like most other people (Buddhists included)  engage in NVB  because they don’t know how to maintain SVB. 

As the need for acceptance, is more apparent in behaviorists than in Buddhists they lack the knowledge and social skill  that signifies that acceptance. Thus, it is obvious in behaviorists that they have NVB! The “social improvement “behaviorism supposedly has in common with Buddhism hasn’t happened as the issue of  SVB  remained unaddressed. All scholarly attention goes to writing, not to speaking. Supposedly, speaking is less important than writing.